SPLC curriculum found in K-12 schools in 42 states, watchdog says

EXCLUSIVE: As the liberal activist organization Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) faces federal fraud charges, an education watchdog warns that the group continues to integrate its “far-left content and materials” into classrooms as early as kindergarten in more than 40 states across the U.S.

Nicole Neily, president of Defending Education, which was once labeled an “extremist” group by SPLC, told Fox News Digital that “unbeknownst to parents, the Southern Poverty Law Center has been poisoning pupils’ minds around the country for years with its toxic curriculum.”

Defending Education published a new exposé detailing how an SPLC education program called “Learning for Justice” (formerly “Teaching Tolerance”) has been integrated into K-12 lesson plans and materials in 169 school districts in 42 states, plus Washington, D.C. According to the watchdog, the program reinforces “far-left cultural and political ideologies,” including “anti-racism, Black Lives Matter, gender ideology and queer theory, white privilege, white supremacy, whiteness, and transgenderism.”

Neily said that due to SPLC’s integration in schools, “issues such as queer theory, white privilege, and anti-racism have supplanted traditional coursework in history, social studies, and other core classes,” which she said is “teaching children to view themselves and others through the lens of identity politics, and that America is forever stained by its original sin.”

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According to Neily, the materials “intentionally sow division and mistrust between students at a formative stage of their development,” adding that “it is deeply disappointing that administrators and educators believe this is an appropriate use of finite classroom time and resources.”

The SPLC did not respond to requests for comment on Defending Education’s report.

The report reveals that SPLC’s website and documents can be found on school district webpages, in teacher professional development and trainings, classroom lessons, district-wide curricula, Social Emotional Learning, social justice standards, and district antiracism and equity policies and resources.

SPLC’s Learning for Justice program, which the report says is focused on “education for liberation,” encourages the implementation of a set of anchor standards and “age-appropriate learning outcomes” divided into the domains of identity, diversity, justice and action.

Under the action category, students are encouraged to commit to join with “diverse people to plan and carry out collective action against exclusion, prejudice and discrimination” and to be “thoughtful and creative in our actions in order to achieve our goals.”

Defending Education said the New York State Education Department added “equity revisions” to its NY Social Emotional Learning Benchmarks that aligned the benchmarks with SPLC’s social justice standards.

The report also notes that the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian lists Learning for Justice as a recommended resource in certain lesson materials. It further points to guidance and curriculum resources from the California Department of Education and Illinois State Board of Education, as well as Chicago Public Schools, that include or reference the standards.

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According to the report, Learning for Justice materials are also incorporated into curriculum and lesson plans for younger students in several districts. The report cites examples, including Cambridge Public Schools in Massachusetts, integrating the Social Justice Standards into junior kindergarten through fifth-grade physical education, and Yonkers Public Schools in New York, using the standards in pre-kindergarten project-based learning units. It also points to Princeton Public Schools in New Jersey updating its early childhood curriculum using the framework.

Rhyen Staley, director of research at Defending Education, posited that the “amount of influence the SPLC’s programming and content has had on district policies, learning standards, curriculums, and lessons is a real concern for families who value a bias-free learning environment.”

“No organization that labels concerned parents as ‘extremists’ and members of ‘hate groups’ should have its biased content used in K-12 schools,” said Staley, adding that “district leaders should end the use of this organization’s materials and ideas.”

SPLC, an Alabama-based organization that describes itself as a “beacon of hope” for “fighting White supremacy,” was indicted late last month on federal fraud charges from a years-long alleged covert paid informant program that Justice Department officials said allocated millions of dollars in donations to a network of informants affiliated with or closely tied to White supremacist and neo-Nazi groups.

The 11-count indictment accuses the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) of wire fraud, false statements to a federally insured bank and conspiracy to commit concealed money laundering. According to the Justice Department, the SPLC sent some $3 million to its paid informants between 2014 and 2023, including people affiliated with the United Klans of America, the National Socialist Party of America and the Aryan Nations-linked Sadistic Souls Motorcycle Club, among others.

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SPLC has denied all allegations of wrongdoing, with a spokesperson defending its work monitoring White supremacist groups and other violent extremist organizations — including via the paid informant program — telling Fox News Digital that their use has “saved lives.”

Fox News Digital reached out to the New York State Education Department, Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, California Department of Education, Illinois State Board of Education, Chicago Public Schools, Cambridge Public Schools, Yonkers Public Schools and Princeton Public Schools for comment.

Fox News Digital’s Breanne Deppisch and Preston Mizell contributed to this report.