…part two
With breathtaking cynicism, the relentlessly anti-free speech SPLC based its defense on the First Amendment, and Coral Ridge’s complaint was dismissed on free speech grounds. Thomas explained: “Because Coral Ridge conceded that it was a ‘public figure,’ the court observed that Coral Ridge had to prove three elements to rebut SPLC’s First Amendment defense: the ‘hate group’ designation had to be (1) provably false, (2) actually false, and (3) made with ‘actual malice.’” This makes the SPLC’s defamation virtually immune to challenge: “The court concluded that SPLC’s ‘hate group’ designation was not provably false because ‘“hate group” has a highly debatable and ambiguous meaning.’”
What’s more, the court said that Coral Ridge hadn’t proved that the SPLC acted with “actual malice,” as is required by the 1964 case New York Times Co. v. Sullivan. Thomas explained that in a defamation case, while an individual need prove only that the defamation has subjected him to “hatred, contempt, or ridicule,” a “public figure” must prove “actual malice,” that is, that the defamatory statement was made “with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.”
Thomas said rightly that this standard should be reconsidered, as it allows for all manner of defamation, including but by no means limited to what is published by the SPLC. The Justice pointed out that “this case is one of many showing how New York Times and its progeny have allowed media organizations and interest groups ‘to cast false aspersions on public figures with near impunity.’” Indeed. But the SPLC has hundreds of millions of dollars, and in my personal experience, lawyers are afraid to take it on.
Yet as Thomas notes, “SPLC’s ‘hate group’ designation lumped Coral Ridge’s Christian ministry with groups like the Ku Klux Klan and Neo-Nazis. It placed Coral Ridge on an interactive, online ‘Hate Map’ and caused Coral Ridge concrete financial injury by excluding it from the AmazonSmile donation program.” Nor is Coral Ridge alone. But “nonetheless, unable to satisfy the ‘almost impossible’ actual-malice standard this Court has imposed, Coral Ridge could not hold SPLC to account for what it maintains is a blatant falsehood.”
Thomas is right. The Supreme Court “should not ‘insulate those who perpetrate lies from traditional remedies like libel suits.’” Unless and until New York Times Co. v. Sullivan and the SPLC are taken down, conservatives will increasingly be second-class citizens in the United States.