The Debanking Double Standard: Why the Left Cares Only When Their Side Gets Targeted
Surprise! Leftist groups are suddenly concerned about debanking—but only when it affects one of their own.
The Southern Poverty Law Center has routinely pressured financial institutions to block mainstream conservative and Christian nonprofits (more on that below), while fatuously claiming that conservative fears of debanking are a “conspiracy theory.”
Now, the shoe is on the other foot, and a chorus of leftist groups is screaming to high heaven since the SPLC itself is now facing debanking.
Of course, the SPLC isn’t facing viewpoint discrimination debanking—it’s losing certain financial benefits because it faces a federal criminal indictment.
My question isn’t whether the SPLC deserves access to donor-advised funds. It’s whether the organizations now demanding equal treatment for the SPLC were willing to extend the same principle to conservative organizations the SPLC attacked.
Here’s what’s going on.
SPLC Loses DAFs
A federal grand jury indicted the SPLC on six charges of wire fraud, four charges of bank fraud, and one charge of conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering for directing $4.1 million in donor funds to members of the very hate groups it claims it exists to oppose, from 2010 to 2023.
The SPLC has not denied the payments, but it says it was paying informants in order to head off violent attacks before they happen. The SPLC has pleaded not guilty.
The indictment claims the SPLC didn’t just pay informants—it reimbursed materials for cross-burnings. It allegedly footed the bill for Klan hoods. An SPLC staff member allegedly carried on an affair with a neo-Nazi leader for years, using the “informant” checks to subsidize their lifestyle.
About a week after the grand jury handed down the indictment in April, Fidelity and Vanguard cut off grants to the SPLC from its customers, who have more than 350,000 donor-advised funds—charitable giving accounts that allow them to maximize tax savings while supporting eligible nonprofits.
“Fidelity Charitable is aware of an ongoing governmental investigation into the Southern Poverty Law Center,” the company wrote in an email to a donor, the Times reported. “Consistent with our grant-making standards and practices, the organization is not an eligible grant recipient during the ongoing investigation.”
Another banking behemoth, Vanguard Charitable, has a similar policy.
“Vanguard Charitable grants only to organizations that meet IRS eligibility requirements,” a spokesperson for the company previously told The Daily Signal. “If we become aware an organization has been charged with a crime by state or federal authorities, we pause grantmaking while the matter is pending.”
Charles Schwab also followed suit.
The Leftist Pressure Campaign
A chorus of left-wing activist groups demanded that Fidelity, Vanguard, and Schwab reconsider.
On May 5, Democracy Alliance posted a letter from “several of the nation’s largest philanthropic networks” defending the SPLC.
“We ask Fidelity Charitable, Vanguard Charitable, and DAFgiving360 to reverse this decision, immediately restore the ability of donors to make grants to Southern Poverty Law Center, and reaffirm your commitment to respecting donor intent,” the letter states. It warns that the debanking “sets a dangerous and unacceptable precedent across philanthropy and civil society.”
Many of the major left-wing dark money foundations I cover in “The Woketopus” signed the letter, including Hopewell Fund, New Venture Fund, and Windward Fund.
The Congressional Integrity Project joined the effot the same day, claiming that “blocking SPLC donations is the latest step in the administration’s coordinated campaign to crack down on a group that’s called out too many of their racist allies.”
The project noted that the purpose of donor-advised fund sponsors is “to direct charitable funds to the organizations their donors have designated,” and warned that Fidelity, Vanguard, and Schwab had “made themselves accomplices in the same campaign of retaliation that has defined this administration’s approach to civil society groups they disagree with from day one.”
On May 6, both the Tides Foundation and the Open Society Foundations signed Democracy Fund’s open letter calling on the DAF sponsors to restore funds to the SPLC. The letter suggests that the charges against the SPLC involve “the use of government power to silence critics,” and warns that “when donor-advised fund sponsors preemptively decline to process contributions to civil rights organizations, the effect is no different from any other form of targeted pressure.”
At Schwab’s Annual General Meeting later in May, a coalition of investors representing more than $4.3 trillion in assets and organized by the left-leaning shareholder advocacy group As You Sow, sent a letter demanding Schwab reconsider.
The letter states that a DAF sponor’s role is to “steward” assets, “not to impose viewpoint-based restrictions that go beyond legal and regulatory requirements.” The letter notes that the SPLC has not lost its 501(c)(3) status and has denied all charges.
“When investors put money in a donor advised fund, they want their funding directives to be followed,” As You Sow CEO Andrew Behar said. “Schwab, Vanguard, and Fidelity have breached this trust, limiting their clients’ giving in what appears to be a coordinated action.”
So, You Finally Care About Debanking?
I’ve long covered how the SPLC puts mainstream conservative and Christian nonprofits on a “hate map” with chapters of the Ku Klux Klan—a map the SPLC says reveals the “infrastructure upholding white supremacy.” The SPLC smears moms and dads who want a say in their kids’ education, conservative youth leaders like Charlie Kirk, and conservative Christian nonprofits.
The SPLC claims these people “vilify” others “typically for their immutable characteristics.” In reality, they’re on the “hate map” for the sin of disagreeing with the SPLC’s agenda, whether on racial lessons in school, on transgender activism, or on lax immigration enforcement.
The SPLC has an ignominious record of demanding that donor-advised funds refuse to direct donor money to the conservative groups on its “hate map.”
In 2020, it partnered with the Council on American-Islamic Relations to release “Hate-Free Philanthropy,” a report lamenting that “hate groups” can receive donor-advised funds.
The Amalgamated Foundation, a project of the SEIU-owned Amalgamated Bank, launched the “Hate Is Not Charitable” campaign, urging donor-advised funds to blacklist the groups on the SPLC “hate map.” Amalgamated Bank has, thankfully, sunsetted the campaign and removed it from the website.
In 2023, the SPLC released a report on “extremist finance,” pressuring donor-advised funds operated by major banks to blacklist “hate groups” like Alliance Defending Freedom and “antigovernment extremist groups” like Moms for Liberty.
In the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network sent an email to leadership at major banks, urging them to stop “bankrolling bigotry,” specifically citing the SPLC on “hate groups.”
About Your Stance on DAFs…
So, I decided I would test whether these leftist groups really believe what they say about donor-advised funds. If donor funding directives ought always to be followed, and even a group under federal indictment should not lose access to donor-advised funds, surely these activist groups would stand on principle and oppose the debanking of conservatives on the SPLC “hate map,” right?
FROM MY DESK
📚Reading: Levi’s Unbuttoned: The Woke Mob Took My Job But Gave Me My Voice by Jennifer Sey
Why I recommend it: Jen Sey has a uniquely qualified voice to talk about woke infiltration of the corporate world, and she’s used her experience to build a brand supporting biological reality. Her book is a must-have.
📰Worth your time: ‘NEVER AGAIN’: Spain’s Border Chaos Is a Warning for America by Jarrett Stepman
So, I asked Democracy Alliance, the Congressional Integrity Project, Democracy Fund, and As You Sow whether they would condemn the SPLC’s demands that DAF sponsors cut off funds from legally eligible 501(c)(3) nonprofits, just because SPLC called them “hate groups.”
Unsurprisingly, these groups didn’t respond to me. It seems they don’t care about debanking—unless it’s happening to their side.
I don’t happen to share these leftist groups’ confidence that the SPLC is actually innocent of the Justice Department’s charges. In fact, I find the charges quite plausible, considering the SPLC’s stock-in-trade of exaggerating “hate” to raise money.
Yet the SPLC’s ultimate guilt or innocence is beside the point. The groups now rallying to its defense don’t just say the SPLC is innocent—they insist that donor-advised funds must honor donor intent and avoid viewpoint-based exclusions. If they truly believe that, it shouldn’t be so hard to get them to condemn the SPLC’s previous attempts at debanking.
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