WHAT DID SHE KNOW? Democrat Governor Candidate Served on SPLC Board While It Bankrolled KKK Member

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson served on the board of the Southern Poverty Law Center while the SPLC paid members of the Ku Klux Klan and the Aryan Nations.

Benson, a Democrat running for governor, joined the organization’s board in 2014opens in a new tab and left in 2019opens in a new tab, when the SPLC fired its co-founder, Morris Dees, amid a racial discrimination and sexual harassment scandal.

The SPLC gained its reputation by suing Ku Klux Klan groups into bankruptcy in the 1980s, and today it maintains a “hate map” that plots mainstream conservative and Christian groups alongside Klan chapters. According to a Justice Department indictment filed Tuesday, the SPLC broke the law by paying $3 million to members of the Klan and other white nationalist groups while claiming to oppose “white supremacy” and by lying to banks about the shell companies it created to hide the funding.

The SPLC has not denied making the payments, instead insisting that it paid “informants” for tips on potential violence. SPLC interim CEO Bryan Fair said the program “saved lives.”

While members of the Klan did firebomb the SPLC offices in 1983, there is no evidence of violent activity threatening the SPLC during the period covered by the indictment, namely 2014 to 2023.

Jocelyn Benson

Benson, who currently leads the polls in the Michigan Democrat gubernatorial primary by a healthy margin, has cited her history with the SPLC in interviews during the campaign, and she mentioned it in her 2025 memoir “The Purposeful Warrioropens in a new tab: Standing Up for What’s Right When the Stakes Are High.”

She worked as a volunteer researcher and undercover investigator at the SPLC right after college, and makes an annual trek to the SPLC’s home city of Montgomery, Alabama, according to a profile on The 19th Newsopens in a new tab. She spoke with a reporter outside the center’s Civil Rights Memorial.

Benson said she researched neo-Nazi and far-right groups at the center, posing as a freelance journalist to uncover the plans of white supremacist leaders and groups.

After more than four years on the SPLC’s board in 2019, her name suddenly disappeared from the website. When PJ Media reached out for comment, the secretary of state’s official Twitter account responded.

“Upon taking office as Michigan Secretary of State, Secretary Benson informed SPLC leadership that she would be stepping down from the board,” the account posted. “Her responsibilities in Michigan are her priority and focus.”

Yet the SPLC leadership page for Benson had mentioned her role as Michigan’s secretary of state.

Benson’s campaign did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment by publication time.

Why Did Benson Leave?

As I wrote in “Making Hate Payopens in a new tab: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center,” Benson left the SPLC amid resurfaced claims of racial discrimination and sexual harassment that trace back decades.

Amid this scandal, the SPLC fired its co-founder, Morris Dees, and saw its longterm president, Richard Cohen, resign. The SPLC brought in Tina Tchen, former chief of staff to former first lady Michelle Obama, to investigate employees’ mistreatment claims, but the center never published a report on the scandal. Disgruntled employees went on to found a union, and after a series of layoffs in 2024, the union accused the SPLC of union-busting and asked for the resignation of SPLC President Margaret Huang. Huang resigned last year.

Criticism

The Republican Governors Association raised Benson’s history and demanded answers.

“It’s time Jocelyn Benson starts answering questions about what she knew and if she played any part in this shocking scandal,” Kollin Crompton, communications director for the Republican Governors Association, said in a statement Thursday.

This article originally appeared at The Daily Signal.