Southern Poverty Law Center Puts Largest Conservative Grassroots Youth Group on ‘Hate Map’ With Klan Chapters

The Southern Poverty Law Center is comparing the largest conservative grassroots youth organization to the Ku Klux Klan, adding Turning Point USA to its “hate map” that plots KKK chapters and claims to expose “the groups upholding white supremacy in the United States.”

The latest version of the SPLC hate map, released Thursday, lists Turning Point USA for the first time, categorizing the group as an “anti-government extremist group.” The hate map also includes PragerU, a nonprofit that uses digital media to spread conservative ideas, putting it in the same category as Turning Point USA.

Critics have long accused the SPLC of liberal bias in applying its “hate” accusations, though the SPLC contests these claims.

PragerU told The Daily Signal that the SPLC did not reach out to them before putting the group on the “hate map.”

“No, they did not notify us and if they’d like to know how we feel about SPLC, we actually have an entire 5 minute video about them titled The “Anti-Hate” Group That Is a Hate Group,” a PragerU representative said.

Turning Point describes itself as “the largest and fastest-growing youth organization in America,” touting a presence on “over 3,500 campuses.” It has more than 800 college chapters and over 1,000 high school chapters. It aims “to build the most organized, active, and powerful conservative grassroots activist network on high school and college campuses across the country.”

“I founded Turning Point USA to take the fight for ideological diversity directly to a progressive stronghold: the nation’s leading colleges and universities,” Turning Point USA Founder Charlie Kirk said in 2019.

“I know many young conservatives all across the country that are isolated and ostracized due to their beliefs,” he wrote in 2013. “They are portrayed as bigots, misogynists and ignorant just because they are conservative.”

In the SPLC’s “Year in Hate and Extremism” report, released with the 2024 version of the “hate map,” the SPLC describes Turning Point USA as “a well-funded, hard-right organization with links to Southern Poverty Law Center-identified hard-right extremists and a tremendous amount of influence in conservative politics.”

The SPLC states that Turning Point Action, the group’s sister 501(c)(4) nonprofit, “led Trump’s 2024 campaign efforts in key battleground states and played a vital role in the election of far-right candidates in Arizona, while TPUSA participated on the advisory board of Project 2025, a blueprint to radically reshape the federal government.”

“Turning Point USA’s primary strategy is sowing and exploiting fear that white Christian supremacy is under attack by nefarious actors, including immigrants, the LGBTQ+ community and civil rights activists,” claims the SPLC.

“TPUSA and its spokespeople often warn their audience that their children, wives, religion, way of life and they themselves are under attack by various constructed enemies,” the report asserts. “TPUSA exploits complicated feelings of insecurity and anxiety to manufacture rage and mobilize support to revive and maintain a white-dominated, male supremacist, Christian social order.”

The SPLC notes that while Kirk once urged conservatives to adopt a “secular worldview,” he has championed Christianity in recent years, aiming to “restore America’s biblical values.”

The SPLC’s report claims to have “documented 1,371 hate and antigovernment extremist groups” in 2024, a decrease from the 2023 number of 1,430.

A domestic terrorist used the SPLC “hate map” to target the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C., in 2012. While the SPLC condemned the attack and insisted that it never intended to inspire violence against anyone, it has kept the council on the “hate map” since.

The SPLC has faced multiple defamation lawsuits over its “hate group” claims.

The “hate map” includes various groups with influence on American conservatism. Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian law firm the SPLC calls an “anti-LGBTQ hate group,” has won multiple cases before the Supreme Court and drafted model legislation. Gays Against Groomers, which the SPLC calls an “anti-LGBTQ hate group,” has organized lesbian, gay, and bisexual people against what it describes as the sexualization of children.

Moms for Liberty, which the SPLC calls an “antigovernment extremist group,” has organized a parental rights movement across the country, training school board candidates.

While the SPLC claims these groups demonize LGBTQ people, the groups claim the SPLC targets them because they oppose its agenda on political issues.

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