When you lose the Southern Poverty Law Center–well, it's not good if you are a high-profile progressive organization that formerly had the SPLC's enthusiastic backing. .
But it looks like the Women's March is fast becoming too much of a hot potato even for the SPLC. The SPLC is declining to partner with the national Women's March this year.
The SPLC, not normally demur in viciously condemning, all too often without reason, organizations as "hate groups," is this time trying to handle matters discreetly. The Daily Beast reports:
Jen Fuson, a spokeswoman for the SPLC, said “other projects were a priority,” but added they would continue to be involved in marches at the local level in areas where they have offices.
The refusal of several high visibility March leaders to distance themselves from the Nation of Islam's Minister Louis Farrakhan was apparently the SPLC's trigger. This is quite an about face from the effusive support the SPLC previously gave the March:
“As an official partner of the march, the Southern Poverty Law Center stands in solidarity with its organizers’ vision — that ‘women’s rights are human rights’ — and with the march’s mission to bring together communities ‘insulted, demonized and threatened by the rhetoric of the past election cycle,’ the SPLC said in January of 2017, calling itself “dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of our society. Through our core issues, we work to protect the rights of the working poor, LGBT, and undocumented immigrant women whom the Women’s March on Washington seeks to unite.”
The Daily Beast further reports that Emily's List, the pro-abortion women's political group, is also absent from the March's list of partners this year.