How Did This Leftist Group Smuggle Its Divisive Ideas Into 169 School Districts, Without Parents Knowing?

The Southern Poverty Law Center has spread its woke activist agenda in education to at least 169 school districts in 42 states, according to a new report, and the impact of teachers unions helps explain this expansive influence.

Learning for Justice, the SPLC’s education arm, promotes “social justice” activism, pushes racially divisive messaging, and advocates transgender ideology. The program, launched as “Teaching Tolerance” in the 1990s, dropped the emphasis on “tolerance” amid the Great Awokening in February 2021. Around that same time, the program removed its own impact statement from the website, which had previously bragged that “more than 500,000 educators” read its magazine, screened its films, visited its website, and used its curricula.

The parental rights group Defending Education exposed Learning for Justice’s broad influence in an exhaustive report Tuesday.

“Unbeknownst to parents, the Southern Poverty Law Center has been poisoning pupils’ minds around the country for years with its toxic curriculum,” Nicole Neily, the group’s president, told The Daily Signal. “SPLC lesson plans on issues such as queer theory, white privilege, and anti-racism have supplanted traditional coursework in history, social studies, and other core classes—teaching children to view themselves and others through the lens of identity politics, and that America is forever stained by its original sin.”

How did the SPLC spread its tentacles this far? America’s two largest teachers unions—the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers—help explain it, as does the American School Counselor Association.

“By promoting and integrating Learning for Justice content and standards into mental health programming and curricula, the teachers unions and ASCA are giving the far-left organization credibility,” Rhyen Staley, director of research at Defending Education, told The Daily Signal. “This is deeply troubling for a variety of reasons, especially since the SPLC has put parents on its ‘hate map’ for simply raising concerns with their local school districts.”

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The SPLC gained its reputation by suing Ku Klux Klan groups into bankruptcy, but weaponized that history to smear conservatives and raise money. In 2023, it added Moms for Liberty, Defending Education, and other parental rights groups to the “hate map,” placing them alongside Klan chapters and calling them part of “the infrastructure upholding white supremacy.”

Last month, a federal grand jury indicted the SPLC on wire fraud, bank fraud, and conspiracy charges for sending $3 million to KKK members. While the SPLC claimed it was paying “informants” to prevent violent attacks, the Justice Department says it was using donor cash to prop up the very “hate” it claims it exists to “dismantle.” The SPLC has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

The SPLC enjoys undue influence in the media, in corporate America, and with a vast network of donors, so it stands to reason that Learning for Justice might achieve a broad impact. Even so, the boost from teachers unions and the American School Counselor Association can’t have hurt.

The Teachers Unions

The Defending Education report cites the National Education Association’s January 2021 “Racial Justice in Education” resource guide, which touts Teaching Tolerance as a “partner” and notes that the NEA partnered with Teaching Tolerance to “create a three-part webinar series” to help “address the climate issues.” The National Education Association claims 3 million members.

The association’s President Becky Pringle condemned the SPLC indictment.

“Civil rights organizations work to ensure we can live free from discrimination,” she wrote on Bluesky. “By indicting a group that fights bias and tracks extremists, Trump’s Department of Justice is abusing its power, making us less safe. They will stop at nothing to crush free speech and further hate.”

The National Education Association did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment by publication time.

The American Federation of Teachers has promoted the SPLC program as far back as 2016, listing “Teaching Tolerance” as a resource on “school discipline.”

In a social media post, the federation’s President Randi Weingarten also condemned the indictment.

“It’s absurd but predictable [the SPLC] is being wrongfully targeted, an org that has documented hate & extremist groups for 50+ years,” she posted on Bluesky. She called the indictment “part of a coordinated attack on civil rights and an escalation of the campaign against those with whom this admin disagrees.”

The American Federation of Teachers has approximately 1.6 million members.

These unions, which have a well-documented leftist slant, enjoyed tremendous influence in the Biden administration.

The American Federation of Teachers did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment by publication time.

The School Counselors

The Defending Education report also noted that the American School Counselor Association, which claimed in 2023 to have over 43,000 members across the country, incorporated the “Social Justice Standards” into its key documents.

The association modeled its Student Standards: Mindsets & Behaviors for Student Success and Student Standards Crosswalk on the SPLC materials.

Neither the NEA nor the AFT nor the ASCA nor the SPLC responded to The Daily Signal’s request for comment by publication time.

The American School Counselor Association did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment by publication time.

A Rising Movement

Moms and dads across the country are taking a stand against the SPLC.

Republicans in Maryland have openly condemned the state’s “implicit bias training” that incorporated Learning for Justice materials. Courage is a Habit has exposed ASCA’s reliance on the SPLC. Lake Havasu Unified School District in Arizona has rooted out an education resource that directed students to avoid the websites of SPLC-smeared “hate groups.”

Last week, Moms for Liberty leader Rosalind Hanson spoke out at Montgomery County Public Schools, condemning MCPS’ use of the Social Justice Standards.

This Defending Education report will hopefully inspire more moms and dads to ask school boards to stop relying on the SPLC. They may find my book, “Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center,” a resource in this effort.