Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) criticized the Southern Poverty Law Center during a House Judiciary Committee hearing in Washington on Tuesday for not listing Islamist or leftist anti-Israel groups on its website’s “Hate Map.”
“How many leftist anti-Jewish groups do you have listed on your website?” Roy asked Bryan Fair, the SPLC’s interim president and CEO. “Name them.”
Fair instead pointed to the SPLC’s 2025 Hate and Extremism Report, released on Tuesday, which “documents the success that the hard-right movement had throughout 2025 at rapidly establishing power across influential institutions, such as the federal government and the private tech sector,” according to the organization. The report identifies 1,263 active hate and anti-government groups nationwide.
According to the SPLC’s 2025 Hate Map, the center’s interactive map that tracks hate and anti-government groups, 16 groups are classified as antisemitic, including the Nation of Islam and the Goyim Defense League. The map also lists 54 neo-Nazi groups and 14 Ku Klux Klan chapters.
Roy noted that, aside from the Nation of Islam, led by Louis Farrakhan, the map does not identify any Islamist organizations. He also argued that anti-Israel activist groups are absent from the list.
“How many extremist Islamic groups do you have of the 1,500 or so organizations you have on your hate map?” Roy asked. “My office has been looking over it and can’t really find one.”
Fair responded that the SPLC does not “target any group because of its religion.”
“We target groups because they express statements and engage in activities that demean and vilify—" Fair said before Roy interrupted him.
Roy asked, “So you think there are a bunch of Islamic groups that are pro-LGBTQ? Is that the position of the SPLC?”
The SPLC currently lists 96 organizations as anti-LGBTQ groups, many of them Christian advocacy organizations.
Brigitte Gabrielle, founder and chairman of Act for America, stated that SPLC “smears Christians daily but shields radical Islam,” calling the group a “total joke.”
The hearing, titled “The Southern Poverty Law Center: Manufacturing Hate, Part II,” examined allegations that the SPLC funded informants embedded in extremist organizations. The Alabama-based civil rights group was indicted by a federal grand jury in April on charges including wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering related to those activities. The SPLC has denied wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty.
Later in the hearing, Rep. Brandon Gill (R-Texas) asked Fair whether Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner’s Nazi tattoo should disqualify him from serving in the Senate.
“If you’re asking me if the SPLC opposes Nazis and Nazi symbols, the answer is yes,” Fair answered.
After displaying a photograph of the tattoo, Gill asked, “You wouldn’t want someone with a tattoo like that in the Senate?”
“No,” Fair answered.
