The Southern Poverty Law Center has "gutted its staff" despite nearly $1 billion in reserves, its union said.
The SPLC Union on Wednesday posted the following to X: "Today, @splcenter — an organization with nearly a billion dollars in reserves, given an F rating by CharityWatch for 'hoarding' donations — gutted its staff by a quarter."
'The organization has sometimes been criticized for its aggressive fundraising tactics. In 2022, the organization reported having $711 million in assets and receiving more than $100 million in donations each year since 2019.'
The union added, "SPLC’s decision has a catastrophic impact on the organization’s work in support of immigrants seeking justice and its mission to dismantle white supremacy, strengthen intersectional movements, and advance human rights through support of educators."
The union added a dozen subsequent posts on X. One of them noted, "More than 60 SPLC Union members, including five Union stewards and our Union Chair, were informed that they would be losing their jobs. We are devastated for our Union and for our colleagues."
Another said, "The layoffs of all 16 staff in the Southern Immigrant Freedom Initiative and its office closure will decimate free legal representation to detained immigrants across Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi." Another added, "The dismantling of the full Immigrant Justice team ends SPLC’s decade-long commitment to the rights of migrant workers and the deep coalition work to advocate for immigrants’ rights and decriminalize migration across the Southeast."
The Associated Press said the SPLC didn't confirm how many staffers were laid off but issued a statement saying it is "undergoing an organizational restructuring,” which will result in a staff reduction.
More from the AP:
The Montgomery, Alabama-based law center was founded in 1971 as a watchdog for minorities and the underprivileged. A decade later, the organization won a $7 million judgment against the United Klans of America on behalf of Beulah Mae Donald, whose son was killed by KKK members in Mobile. Over the years, the organization has advocated for expanding voting access, protections for immigrants and equal rights for members of the LGBTQ community. It has also maintained a list of extremist organizations.
The organization has sometimes been criticized for its aggressive fundraising tactics. In 2022, the organization reported having $711 million in assets and receiving more than $100 million in donations each year since 2019.
Employees of Southern Poverty Law Center voted to unionize in 2019. The employees voted to join the Washington-Baltimore News Guild.
Mainstream news outlets frequently cite the SPLC as the authority on what organizations are hate groups.
Fox News said the SPLC had to apologize after calling neurosurgeon and former Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson an "extremist." The SPLC recently called Moms for Liberty an "anti-government extremist group."
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), in a scathing 2023 opinion piece, suggested that the SPLC's corruption and terror-links disqualified lawyer Nancy Abudu from serving on the U.S. Court of Appeals. President Joe Biden nominated Abudu, who supervised and strategized SPLC litigation since 2019. She began serving on the Eleventh Circuit on June 1, 2023.
An SPLC attorney was arrested for domestic terrorism in a group of 23 who allegedly violently attacked the future site of an Atlanta police training facility last year.
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It appears that major U.S. media outlets have been receiving millions of dollars from China Daily, a state-owned Chinese media company.
All China Daily has asked for in exchange for the millions is that these American publications publish Chinese propaganda disguised as news articles.
According to Drew Holden from the Washington Free Beacon, China Daily is “a mouthpiece for the Chinese Communist Party.”
“It’s fully owned and operated by the CCP,” Holden tells Stu Burguiere, revealing that media outlets were getting paid “to include puff pieces about the Chinese regime” and “to talk about U.S.-China relations” in “ways that weren’t connected to the facts at all.”
The New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal had all been a part of this before severing their connections with China Daily when news got out about their involvement in 2021.
Time magazine has also partnered up with China Daily, receiving $3.5 million from the CCP-operated company since 2021.
Time created a segment called “China Watch,” which is a segment on Time’s website that runs advertisements that Holden says “really just look like bad news articles under the Time magazine logo.”
“They’re all gonna stop and stop taking the Chinese propaganda money. Right, Drew?” Stu Burguiere asks, noting that it would make sense now that they’ve been caught.
“You would think,” Holden laughs.
“Straight propaganda from our geopolitical nemesis in China being printed underneath their logos to be distributed to their readership, and they’re taking a ton of money to do this,” he adds.
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Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said in a note to employees on Thursday that the company is cutting jobs, and the downsizing will continue into next year.
Jassy said that the business is in the midst of an annual review, which has been tougher this year.
"This year's review is more difficult due to the fact that the economy remains in a challenging spot and we've hired rapidly the last several years," he explained.
"Yesterday, we communicated the difficult decision to eliminate a number of positions across our Devices and Books businesses, and also announced a voluntary reduction offer for some employees in our People, Experience, and Technology (PXT) organization. Our annual planning process extends into the new year, which means there will be more role reductions as leaders continue to make adjustments. Those decisions will be shared with impacted employees and organizations early in 2023. We haven't concluded yet exactly how many other roles will be impacted (we know that there will be reductions in our Stores and PXT organizations), but each leader will communicate to their respective teams when we have the details nailed down," Jassy said in the note.
Jassy, who took on the CEO role last year, said that this has been the hardest experience since taking the reins at the organization.
"I've been in this role now for about a year and a half, and without a doubt, this is the most difficult decision we've made during that time (and, we've had to make some very tough calls over the past couple of years, particularly during the heart of the pandemic)," he wrote. "We are working to support those who are affected and trying to help them find new roles on teams that have a need; and in cases where that's not possible, we are offering packages that include a separation payment, transitional health insurance benefits, and external job placement support."
The Stacey Abrams-founded Fair Fight is laying off 75 percent of its staff due to 'rising litigation costs' and inadequate fundraising.
In tracking BLM contributions, we found many companies prioritizing 'racial justice' to the detriment of shareholders and employees.
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Womp, womp! Massive layoffs hit Media Matters after Elon Musk lawsuit
Media Matters has solely existed to be a watchdog against the right for years, often seeking to ruin the lives of conservatives via cancel culture.
Now, the media company is having massive layoffs after Elon Musk brought it to court in November — and Lauren Chen is not above celebrating.
“They are a leftist watchdog organization that basically just exists to smear right-wing figures. And to be clear, the problem here is not that Media Matters advances, like, leftist talking points kind of, like, the Young Turks. No, Media Matters is really in a totally separate category,” Chen says.
“It seems like all they do is sit around consuming right-wing content, looking for sound bites or unflattering quotes to take out of context in the hopes of canceling right-wing figures,” she continues, adding, “and I therefore hate them.”
Last year, Media Matters messed up when it attempted to smear the wrong person and ended up getting sued by Musk. Media Matters was accused of manufacturing a report to show advertisers’ posts alongside neo-Nazi and white nationalist posts in order to “drive advertisers from the platform and destroy X corp.”
“They were essentially trying to play the algorithm to get really unflattering screenshots for X, even though for the average user this is not at all what would appear if you were using the platform,” Chen explains.
The media company has just now been forced to fire at least a dozen staffers.
“We’re confronting a legal assault on multiple fronts, and given how rapidly the media landscape is shifting, we need to be extremely intentional about how we allocate resources in order to stay effective,” the president of Media Matters, Angelo Carusone, said in a statement.
“For right-wing content creators like myself, that means there’s going to be fewer people out there looking to basically quote mine you in the hopes of destroying your career,” Chen says happily.
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