The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has responded to Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk’s murder by calling for civility — yet it called his popular conservative organization extreme for years.
The leftist watchdog group declared that “violence only fuels division” in a Wednesday statement, condemning Kirk’s assassination at Utah Valley University (UVU) in Orem, which authorities have pinned on a leftist suspect. The SPLC spent years accusing TPUSA of being a hateful, white nationalist-friendly movement despite Kirk denouncing such ideologies, and TPUSA appeared on the SPLC’s so-called “Hate Map” four months before Kirk’s death over its common conservative stances.
“Violence is never the answer. We condemn the shooting of Charlie Kirk and all violence in any form,” the SPLC said Wednesday in response to Kirk’s murder. “Our history shows violence only fuels division — justice requires peace.”
The SPLC and TPUSA did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s requests for comment.
The organization rose to fame after its founding in 1971 by combating real white supremacists, but it has repeatedly listed right-leaning groups such as Moms for Liberty and Gays Against Groomers on its Hate Map — alongside the Ku Klux Klan — for criticizing LGBTQ ideology and other liberal priorities.
In a Thursday letter, dozens of lawmakers asked congressional leaders to form a select committee investigating “the money, influence, and power behind the radical left’s assault on America and the rule of law,” referencing the SPLC’s attacks on Kirk among their concerns.
“TPUSA exploits complicated feelings of insecurity and anxiety to manufacture rage and mobilize support to revive and maintain a white-dominated, male supremacist, Christian social order,” the SPLC wrote in its “Year in Hate and Extremism” report explaining its updated Hate Map.
“TPUSA simultaneously positions Christianity as superior and dominant, while also orchestrating myths of religious persecution,” the report reads. “This framing is used to justify its extreme, authoritarian vision for the country that threatens the foundation of our democracy.”
Responding to the new “hate” group label, Kirk warned in a May X post that the SPLC’s “game plan” was to “scare financial institutions into debanking us, pressure schools to cancel us, and demonize us so some unhinged lunatic feels justified targeting us.”
The influential conservative activist also highlighted the 2012 shooting at the Washington, D.C., headquarters of Family Research Council, a conservative think tank, by a gunman who told law enforcement he targeted the group because it was on the SPLC’s Hate Map.
“They’d love nothing more than to see TPUSA in the crosshairs,” Kirk said. Four months later, a lone bullet struck his neck and took his life while he tried to debate students during an outdoor TPUSA event.
Kirk’s assassin is 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, who embraced leftist ideology and left anti-“fascist” messaging on his bullet casings, officials have alleged. Phrases written on the casings included, “hey fascist! CATCH!” and “Bella ciao,” the name of a left-wing anthem from World War II-era Italy.
Robinson allegedly lived with a transgender romantic partner, according to Republican Utah Gov. Spencer Cox and Fox News. The suspect grew up in a Mormon household under two registered Republican parents, The Los Angeles Times reported.
The SPLC has added Turning Point to their ridiculous “hate group” list, right next to the KKK and neo-Nazis, a cheap smear from a washed-up org that’s been fleecing scared grandmas for decades. They somehow still rake in over $100 million a year peddling their “hate map”…
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) May 25, 2025
Though TPUSA repeatedly rejected racist views, the SPLC highlighted anecdotes as evidence of the group’s supposed extremism.
The SPLC accused TPUSA of having a “blooming romance with the alt-right” in 2018, citing a former leader who accused TPUSA of having ties to white nationalism. The SPLC also mentioned a crowd of openly white supremacist protesters at a TPUSA event at Colorado State University, whom Kirk clearly disavowed.
“That BS they’re trying to say out there, it’s not who we are, it’s not what we believe, it’s not what Turning Point believes,” Kirk said of the racist protesters, according to The Coloradoan.
More recently, Kirk also strongly contested the claims of a man seen on video at an April TPUSA event who told him that America’s government and institutions are “infiltrated by the Jews.”
“Antisemitism is literally a brain rot that stops your ability to think independently, and you start blaming everything on a very small group of people,” Kirk told the critic during a Q&A session, prompting cheers. “And let me say, that has no place in decent society.”
“Even saying, ‘Well, Hitler wasn’t wrong about everything.’ Yeah. Okay,” Kirk said mockingly. “Next question.”
Rather than backtracking on its mission to promote conservative values, TPUSA is doubling down. The group currently has at least 900 college campus chapters and 1,200 high school chapters across the country, and within 48 hours of Kirk’s death, it received 32,000 inquiries related to starting new chapters, spokesperson Andrew Kolvet said in a Sunday X post.
“Being on their list is a badge of honor. It means they’re terrified that we’re so effective,” Kirk said in May. “Keep crying, SPLC — America’s done with your scam.”
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