University of Oregon Continues Struggle With Controversial Group

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I have long found it curious that people feel that the right to free speech means that you are entitled to say anything you choose anywhere you choose. That is not free speech but anarchy.
Organizations’ not only have the right to determine who uses their facilities and for what purposes but also have a civic responsibility to do so. What an individual or group says within its own property should be subject to few restrictions unless the way they are doing it physically harms another person or another’s property.
There is an appropriate balance to be struck between property rights and freedom of speech. I can’t restrict what you stand in the street and say but that privilege is not unlimited.

Chuck Chastain of OK 6:16PM February 02, 2010

There is no legal definition for the term "Hate Group", which is why even the FBI does not track "hate groups". So what exactly is the SPLC tracking?
The SPLC is a private fund-raising organization. It has no mandate and receives no external review. The SPLC has no legal or moral authority to designate anyone as anything. The reason the SPLC hides behind the smear "hate group" is because if they actually accused these groups of actual "hate crimes", they would be sued for libel.
In March 2008, the SPLC's PR Director Mark Potok summed up their own whimsical definition of what exactly constituted a “hate” group by stating that “…a “hate group” has nothing to do with criminality… [or] potential for violence...” Rather, as Potok put it, “It’s all about ideology.”
No criminality, no violence, but if you don't agree with the SPLC's ideology you must be a "hater" or at the very least, a "wrong thinker". This doesn't SCARE people?
(http://www.splcenter.org/news/item.jsp?aid=301)
The SPLC's "Hate Map" (http://wp.me/pCLYZ-K) is a fund-raising tool that brings in tens of millions of donor dollars each year. Of the 926 alleged "hate group" on the map, 127 of them are not affiliated with ANY location. They merely float in space, padding the numbers.
For states like Maine, New Mexico and Wyoming, 100% of their alleged "hate groups" are homeless. We know that they are really out there because the SPLC tells us so in their never-ending fund-raising propaganda. And not one legitimate news outlet will call their bluff and ask to see the proof, including US News.
Currently the SPLC is sitting on top of more that $153 MILLION donor dollars, yet every month the pleas for more donations go out like clockwork.
According to their own auditors, in 2008, the SPLC spent hundreds of thousands more donor dollars on fund-raising postage than they did on actual "legal case costs." They spent more on office supplies and twice as much on fund-raising printing costs than they did on "legal case costs". (http://wp.me/pCLYZ-34)
And in conclusion, why is it that an organization that purports to be a bastion of civil rights is run exclusively by Whites? Not ONE of the SPLC's top ten, highest paid officers are minorities. (http://wp.me/pCLYZ-3r)
The last remaining "Whites Only" sign in Montgomery must be hanging in the boardroom of the SPLC. Some "experts".
All of these facts are readily available from the SPLC's own web site. I can understand some local Mom and Pop newspaper swallowing SPLC fund-raising propaganda without performing even the most rudimentary fact checking, but US News???
Are there no editors left there who can assign even a lowly intern to investigate the SPLC's spurious claims? Where are the professional journalists when you need them?

Richard Keefe of VA 11:38AM February 02, 2010