Grants to SPLC and DEI Demonstrate Federal Spending Against Taxpayer Values

Editor’s Note: This article is part of the DOGE Files, a series of investigations into federal grants to nonprofits that Capital Research Center is conducting. We are pleased the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and others are exploring the vast forest of nonprofits trying to influence the U.S. government—an area that Capital Research Center has spent years mapping.

This article explores grants made to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and other nonprofits, particularly for diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs.

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Nothing is easier than spending the public money. It does not appear to belong to anybody. The temptation is overwhelming to bestow it on somebody.

—President Calvin Coolidge

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What government funds defines its values, which ideally should mean our values. But tens of millions of dollars in grants shipped out by federal agencies over the last four years betray a value system far out of step with the people paying the bills.

For example, Lecia Brooks was paid $260,000 total compensation by the controversial Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) in 2021. The left-wing nonprofit reported $132.7 million in revenue and nearly $770 million in net assets for 2021.

But the State Department thought Brooks and her “poverty” named employer needed your money as well. On April 12, 2021, it shipped out an $800 “honorarium” grant for Brooks. Then in November 2021, another grant of $7,700 from State to SPLC was approved with this in the grant description: “LECIA BROOKS IS A TARGET-OF-OPPORTUNITY SPEAKER.”

The usual target of opportunity for Brooks and SPLC is fanning the flames of racial division.

“It is extremely troubling, yet sadly expected, that someone would hang a noose — the ultimate symbol of white supremacist violence used to murder Black people — in the stall of the only Black driver on the NASCAR circuit,” chirped Brooks on June 22, 2020. The following day, an FBI investigation revealed the so-called “noose” was in fact a “door pull rope” that had been in place months before driver Bubba Wallace’s team took over the garage.

Unlike the NASCAR “noose,” SPLC’s racism hasn’t been a hoax. In 2019, CNN reported that SPLC had been “thrust into chaos” after the resignation of its founder because of what staff alleged was a “systemic culture of racism and sexism within its workplace.”

SPLC’s $8,500 in grants was a relatively trivial amount within the massive federal budget. But it’s emblematic of the problem.

More Examples

Another example, NextGen Climate America, was started by lefty billionaire Tom Steyer. Perhaps he is running low on lefty money because in June 2024 the Department of Labor approved a $6 million “employment training” grant for NextGen. CRC’s Robert Stilson recently described NextGen as a “nonprofit that fights for what it calls ‘progressive policy change to address environmental, social, racial, and economic inequities in California through justice-centered legislative advocacy, grassroots partnerships, and democratic civic engagement.’”

Similarly, Citizen Action of New Jersey has a webpage where it boasts of “Electing Progressive Leaders.” On another page, the advocacy nongovernmental organization (NGO) explains that its educational nonprofit is the New Jersey Citizen Action Education Fund (NJCAF). Since 2021 the NJCAF has received more than $800,000 combined from Treasury and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

UnidosUS has received $50.8 million in combined federal grants since 2021 from HUD, Labor, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Department of Commerce, and the Federal Communications Commission. Unidos produced a 2023 “toolkit” to help employers inflict diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies on their workplaces.

The DEI agenda of an NGO named Chinese for Affirmative Action (CAA) should be self-explanatory. In October 2024 the Department of Justice awarded CAA a $2 million grant.

And the Institute for Diversity and Inclusion in Emergency Management (I-DIEM) claims to have “years of experience in disaster management” and to have “witnessed the damaging impacts caused by a lack of diversity and inclusion first-hand.” The U.S. Agency for International Development awarded a $1.4 million grant to I-DIEM in February 2023.

A December 2024 Fox News poll reported 63 percent thought it at least “somewhat” important to end DEI programs, with 45 percent saying it was “extremely” or “very” important to do so.

Make the Road New York (MRNY) and its partner, Make the Road States (also known as “Make the Road New Jersey”), have been approved for $2.6 million in combined grants since 2021 from the HHS and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). MRNY has promoted the abolition of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)—a subsidiary of DHS. And in November 2024, Make the Road New Jersey sponsored a rally where “activists . . . vowed to fight President-elect Donald Trump.”

CASA also promotes abolition of ICE, claiming it is a “rogue agency.” CASA has been promoted by the DHS, the Environmental Protection Agency, Labor, and Treasury to the tune of $3.2 million in approved grants since 2021. An Axios/Ipsos poll released last week showed 66 percent of Americans—including 43 percent of Democrats—support deporting immigrants who are in the country illegally.

Reflecting Taxpayer Values

Taxpayer grants should reflect taxpayer values. It some cases, particularly the grants approved in 2024, it is possible that not all of the funds have been given out. For those working in the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), this presents the potential for clawing back funding for extreme ideologies that the majority of taxpayers would never have supported.

Source: https://capitalresearch.org/article/grants-to-splc-and-dei-demonstrate-federal-spending-against-taxpayer-values/