Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) head Bryan Fair reiterated on Tuesday that his organization believes the late Charlie Kirk founded a “hate” group.
Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas asked Fair, the SPLC’s interim president and CEO, if the SPLC regrets putting Kirk’s Turning Point USA (TPUSA) on its “Hate Map” alongside white nationalists during a House Judiciary Committee hearing. The hearing largely explored the Department of Justice’s pending indictment accusing the SPLC of defrauding donors by funding white supremacist activism.
Conservatives have long criticized the leftist watchdog group for labeling mainstream conservative organizations such as TPUSA as hateful before Kirk was murdered in Utah in September.
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“With respect to Charlie Kirk, have y’all taken any position since Charlie Kirk—” Roy said before Fair interjected.
“We unequivocally condemned the murder of Charlie Kirk,” Fair said.
“What about the listing of Charlie Kirk?” Roy said, referring to the SPLC’s “hate” categorizations.
“It is our position that TPUSA expresses views and vilifies other people based on immutable characteristics, exposing them to our listing,” Fair told the lawmaker.
The SPLC’s “Year in Hate” report for 2025, released Tuesday, also described TPUSA as part of the “hard right” infiltrating college campuses. “Turning Point is a large, well-funded, and politically well-connected group within the hard right that brings bigoted speakers and professional provocateurs to college campuses,” the SPLC wrote.
Fair’s group also faced backlash on Monday as the nonprofit 1792 Exchange issued a letter on behalf of 15 organizations, including TPUSA, calling for the corporate donation management platform Benevity to stop relying on the SPLC’s “hate” lists.
“The coalition has expanded with the addition of Turning Point USA, PragerU, and Focus on the Family, joining a powerful group of mainstream organizations that have been slanderously labeled ‘hate groups’ by the SPLC, not for any violence or extremism, but solely for dissenting from progressive orthodoxy on issues of life, family, faith, and liberty,” the letter says.
Fair declined to answer numerous questions about the SPLC’s federal indictment throughout Tuesday’s hearing, saying attorneys would address allegations in court.
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