A defamation lawsuit against an Alabama-based civil rights organization, the Southern Poverty Law Center, will move forward after a federal judge refused to dismiss a complaint that the center unfairly lumped an immigration reform advocacy group in with extremists such as the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis.

Judge William Keith Watkins of Alabama’s Middle District Federal Court rejected a request by the SPLC to dismiss the lawsuit filed by the Dustin Inman Society.

The founder of the Dustin Inman Society, Donald King, sued the center two years ago after it labeled his organization an “anti-immigrant hate group” in 2018. The label is causing “severe reputational damage” and exposing the organization and its members to “live in a climate of severe fear,” the lawsuit says. 

The Dustin Inman Society advocates securing borders and regulating immigration to America to “protect the American people from unauthorized and uninspected border crossings,” according to its mission statement.  

Mr. King tells the Sun he was “quite surprised” when the SPLC included his organization on a chart of so-called hate groups under the “anti-immigrant” label. “We are proud to have Americans of all descriptions on our board and as donors and supporters,” Mr. King says. “That includes immigrants.”

The court’s decision to allow the case to move forward, Mr. King says, is a “first step” toward seeking justice for Americans who speak out against illegal immigration. “We want to not only defend our own reputation,” Mr. King says, but also help other “honest pro-enforcement Americans.”

The SPLC said that the Dustin Inman Society “denigrates” immigrants and supports measures that complicate their lives in America. “Despite his regular demonization of immigrants,” the SPLC’s website says, Mr. King “has played a significant role in passing anti-immigrant legislation in Georgia for more than a decade.”

Through its “Hate Map” portal, the SPLC tracks hate groups across America. The map consists largely of anti-immigration groups, groups opposing LGTBQ rights, anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic organizations, as well as extremists such as the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Confederate groups, neo-Nazis, and white nationalists. 

The SPLC did not respond to The New York Sun’s request for comment. 

Mr. King claims that SPLC reversed a 2011 pledge to leave the Dustin Inman Society off an earlier version of its chart. The plaintiff says that an SPLC project director at the time, Heidi Beirich, allegedly told the Associated Press that Mr. King’s “tactics” did not threaten immigrants. The organization was added to the chart in 2018.

“He is working on his legislation through the political process,” Ms. Beirich said. “That is not something we can quibble with, whether we like the law or not.” 

The plaintiff claims that being part of SPLC’s hate group list has exposed other organizations to violent threats. A group that opposes access to abortion, divorce, and LGBTQ rights, the Family Research Council, as well as Charles Murray of the American Enterprise Institute, were targeted violently after being included in the hate group list. 

Republican and conservative commentators have lately been speaking against the SPLC, saying it is biased against conservatives. The Republican National Committee in 2020 approved a resolution that condemned the SPLC, calling it “a far-left organization with an obvious bias” that “puts conservative groups or voices at risk.”

In response, the president and chief executive of the SPLC, Margaret Huang, said that the resolution gave “comfort to hate groups.” She also said the resolution’s purpose was to defend the Trump administration, which has a “history of working with individuals and organizations that malign entire groups of people.”

In 2021, a federal appeals court dismissed a lawsuit filed by a Baltimore-based attorney, Glenn Allen, who accused the SPLC of defaming him for his articles tied to neo-Nazi movements. In 2019, a federal judge in Washington rejected another lawsuit that claimed that SPLC wanted to destroy the Center for Immigration Studies after labeling it a hate group.