Massive SPLC-linked grant under fire as watchdog exposes ties to middle school programs
FIRST ON FOX: A watchdog is sounding the alarm over at least $3.85 million in taxpayer-backed support tied to the Southern Poverty Law Center, including a multimillion-dollar federal grant for...
By Fox News · Fox News
FIRST ON FOX: A watchdog is sounding the alarm over at least $3.85 million in taxpayer-backed support tied to the Southern Poverty Law Center , including a multimillion-dollar federal grant for a university-led project that says it integrates SPLC's racial justice curriculum into middle school classrooms. Using the power of public records requests, taxpayer watchdog OpenTheBooks released a report Friday highlighting $1,352,655.07 in taxpayer dollars it said had been paid "directly" to the SPLC from school districts, states, cities, counties, universities and other public entities since fiscal year 2016. OpenTheBooks also found an active National Institutes of Health-backed University of Michigan project grant worth $2.5 million, which materials from the university say integrates the SPLC's "Learning for Justice" curriculum, previously called "Teaching Tolerance," into programming for middle-school classrooms. The grant's original Freedom of Information Act-obtained application said researchers would integrate "the Teaching Tolerance curriculum from the Southern Poverty Law Center" into an existing middle school program and test it across six Genesee County, Michigan, middle schools. EXCLUSIVE: SPLC'S 'FAR-LEFT' 'ANTI-RACISM' CURRICULUM FOUND IN CLASSROOMS AS EARLY AS KINDERGARTEN: WATCHDOG 8th-grade lesson materials from the SPLC's curriculum, reviewed by Fox News Digital, directed students to a "map of active hate groups" suggesting "anti-gay" and "radical traditionalist Catholic" organizations are equivalent to the Ku Klux Klan, Neo-Nazis and Black-Separatists. Other Learning for Justice youth materials encourage students to see themselves as part of a "movement for justice" and included toolkits for sustained activism. President Donald Trump's Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) told Fox News Digital the program "is no longer being funded" and has been "redesigned" to focus on reducing teen and family violence. However, OpenTheBooks points to Universit…