Pentagon discontinues use of SPLC's training materials on extremism

The Pentagon has discontinued the use of extremism training resources provided by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), according to a recent report.

An email obtained by The Daily Caller indicated that the Department of Defense (DOD) Office of Diversity Management and Equal Opportunity has removed any and all references to the SPLC training materials that were previously used by the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute (DEOMI).

"Based upon guidance from the Office of Diversity Management and Equal Opportunity, all references to the SPLC have been removed from any current training," Brian J. Field, assistant attorney at the Civil Division of the U.S. Attorney's Office, wrote

DEOMI is a DOD school that teaches courses in racial, gender and religious equality, as well as other subjects like equal opportunity and pluralism.

In 2014, the Pentagon announced that it would remove information on hate groups provided by the SPLC, but it would keep using SPLC data in "non-federal reference material" for DEOMI. It appears that the DOD school has now decided to completely sever ties with the SPLC, as it was the only sub-branch of the Pentagon that has records of the left-leaning organization's materials.

The SPLC has been facing criticism from conservative groups for listing pro-life, pro-marriage, and Christian organizations in its "hate map," along with hate groups like neo-Nazis and the KKK.

D. James Kennedy Ministries, a Christian ministry from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., recently filed a defamation lawsuit against the SPLC after it was labeled as a hate group.

The SPLC's "hate map" has prompted an online donation processor to cut ties with the Ruth Institute, a Catholic group dedicated to ending "family breakdown by energizing the Survivors of the Sexual Revolution."

The left-leaning group has also been denounced by liberals, such as anti-Muslim extremism activist and feminist Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who stated in August that "the S.P.L.C. is an organization that has lost its way, smearing people who are fighting for liberty and turning a blind eye to an ideology and political movement that has much in common with Nazism."

On Sept. 6, a coalition of over 50 conservative organizations released a public letter denouncing the SPLC and calling the group "a discredited, left-wing, political activist organization that seeks to silence its political opponents with a 'hate group' label of its own invention."

According to The Daily Caller, the FBI, which formerly used the SPLC as a "hate crimes resource," has also been distancing itself from the group.