Fundraising Appeal

Glen K. Allen, Esq. v. Beirich, Potok, and SPLC Lawsuit

What does freedom mean to you — freedom to think nonconforming thoughts,  to associate with nonconforming people, to advocate nonconforming viewpoints?  To me, freedom is essential to a good life, the oxygen that, if missing or taken away, renders our world “weary, flat, [and] stale,” as Shakespeare’s Hamlet says.  To really breathe at all, we must be free to wander off the reservation of received and approved opinion.

What are the enemies of freedom?  There are many:  poverty, poor health, social chaos, despotic governments, the lack of avenues to express freedom.  But a particularly offensive and insidious kind is one that purports to advance the public good when in reality its primary aims are to enrich itself while destroying its political adversaries.  This describes perfectly what the Southern Poverty Law Center has become today.  Drawing on a massive surveillance model reminiscent of a Communist regime,  motivated by lucrative fundraising aims, and employing fundraising techniques decried across the political spectrum as deceptive, the SPLC’s avowed goal, under the leadership of Heidi Beirich, Mark Potok, and others, is to destroy, through public shaming, loss of employment, and harm to reputation those groups and persons the SPLC broadly defines as political enemies of its leftist agenda.  And the SPLC is masterful at what it does.   Its victims are legion, and its bank accounts bulge with over $450 million it has raised using its misleading “hate maps” and other fundraising techniques.

I, Glen Allen, the plaintiff in Allen v. Beirich, Potok, and the SPLC, have been one of Beirich’s, Potok’s, and the SPLC’s targets.  Their carefully orchestrated destruction of my legal career was severe, causing my termination as an attorney for the City of Baltimore and destroying the reputation as an attorney I had achieved over decades by performing ethical and competent work, including frequent and substantial pro bono work for African-Americans and others.  The cause of free expression itself is another victim, for the SPLC has become one of the most effective and terror-inspiring censors in the country, and every success it achieves emboldens it further.  (A more detailed summary of my complaint and copies of the complaint itself and other important pleadings can be found in the Resources section below.)

I am defying the SPLC’s fraud and intimidation.  I need your help.  I am fighting not for myself alone but for all who need breathing space to think and express unconventional and unpopular opinions.  In particular, I am challenging the SPLC’s 501c3 status, which it uses so effectively to  impoverish honest and robust debate on controversial issues such as immigration and race relations.

My complaint is a true David v. Goliath struggle, but my claims have merit and I will pursue them vigorously.  But litigation of this nature is expensive. I must engage co-counsel and pay litigation expenses, and cannot hope to stay in the ring with the SPLC, with its $450 million endowment and large staff of attorneys, without financial help from friends and supporters.  The SPLC openly boasts about its destructive aims and successes, which unfortunately are many.  Please help me strike a blow for freedom against these self-appointed thought police.