by Jack Wikoff

From The Freedom Site

In January, 1994 I received word from a contact in Ithaca, New York that lawyer Morris S. Dees was to speak at Cornell Law School on Tuesday, January 25.

Dees, age 58, cofounder of the Southern Poverty Law Center, has become a multimillionaire through his work with the SPLC (which should more accurately be called the Southern Millionaires Law Center.)

Posing as a "civil rights" lawyer, Dees has eroded freedom of speech, press and association by using lawsuits in civil courts against outspoken White racist organizations. These lawsuits are intended to financially destroy such groups by convincing racially-mixed juries to bring multi-million dollar judgments against the organizations for the independent actions of individual members.

In most of these cases, the organizations' leaders were not even participants in the unlawful actions, while in some the connection between the accused and the organization was very remote. Organizations have been bankrupted with huge civil judgments solely because of legal acts of speech and press which were alleged to have motivated individual members. In America today, any "politically incorrect" organization whose members run afoul of the law may find themselves in "triple jeopardy" of prosecution. First, they may be indicted and tried in state courts for a criminal charge. Secondly, federal civil rights charges for the same act may be brought, even without a criminal conviction, as happened to the police officers in the Rodney King trial. Thirdly, a civil suit may be brought, again, even without criminal conviction. It is in this third category that Dees has made his fame and fortune.

Finally, to complicate things even more, the U.S. Supreme Court has recently ruled that the federal RICO anti-racketeering statute, originally designed to combat organized crime, may be used to bring lawsuits with triple damages against such groups as Operation Rescue, the antiabortion activists, on the grounds that their tactics infringe upon the civil rights of other citizens. Undoubtedly, this decision will also lead to prosecutions of racist groups.

Wanting very much to hear what Dees had to say on these matters, plans were made to go to the MacDonald Moot Court Room in the law school building, Myron Taylor Hall, for the lecture. I contacted a number of other racial activists in the area and we assembled a group to travel down to Ithaca. We were pleased to have such a group on a work day, many of whom traveled in bitterly cold, snowy weather.

Our group was instructed to dress like law students and faculty and arrive and sit separately in the auditorium. Tina Higgins, a founder of Central New York White Pride, brought an audio tape recorder and another person brought a camera. We also asked a sympathetic lawyer to sit in the audience and afterwards give an assessment of Dees' lecture.

Security was heavy at the talk because Mr. Dees apparently has quite a few enemies. Besides a campus cop walking around with a metal detector and walkie-talkie, there were two "gorillas" in expensive suits with micro- radio communication units like those used by federal agents. Also, a number of law students manned the doorways to the court room.

Our photographer was not able to get in with his camera, mainly because he did not take the advice to dress up, but came in a black leather jacket and jeans. Earlier our photographer had said he was going to wear a three piece suit. If he had done so and hidden his camera under his coat, he might have been able to get in and get a few shots of Dees.

Tina Higgins captured a good audio recording of Dees' comments although the room had a high ceiling and echoed quite a bit. A directional microphone will be employed in future situations.

Tina and I arrived early and sat right down in front. When Dees entered the room I walked over to him and asked him to autograph a poster for his lecture. After I got Morris' signature, I really don't know what to do with it. Later, the poster with Morris' mug shot and autograph ended up being used for a dart board.

Dees began the lecture, in his deep Southern drawl, by discussing ways of emotionally swaying a jury. The example used was a case, involving race, argued by the famous defense lawyer Clarence Darrow in the 1920's. Being a master of self-promotion, Dees made it clear to the audience that he considered himself very capable of following in Darrow's footsteps.

Next, Dees spoke about the case brought against Tom and John Metzger of the White Aryan Resistance. Following are excerpts from the transcript of our tape recording of Morris Dees at Cornell University Law School.

But there was a person down in Fallbrook, California that had a different version of the American Dream and his name was Tom Metzger and his organization was the White Aryan Resistance. He was kind of the Godfather of the skinhead movement in the country and he was preaching and teaching violence to young skinheads and more so he was sending agents out. And we found that he sent one of these young skinhead organizers up to Portland for the purpose of encouraging and teaching racial violence.

I had a particularly difficult time with that case though. Because if I had to use the simple facts of my case I might not have won it. I got some of the same advice that Mr. Darrow got, from our local counsel in that case. I talked with Richard Cohen and the other lawyers at the center and we decided to play it a little different.

You see, Tom Metzger was 1200 miles from the murder. He didn't even know the three skinheads who had committed the crime. They had been caught and put in prison. He had never met the victim and he had never specifically told anybody to go out and commit a murder.

He had sent an agent out and this agent, kind of through subtleties, had been told to commit violence. When Metzger, who represented himself - he's a slick talker and he had plenty of money for lawyers - but he wanted to represent himself. He had been on the Oprah Show and the Donahue and all these other things. And he had his little cable television show. And he also felt we didn't have a case. He felt that he could get up in front of a jury and boast about being a white supremacist and try to hide behind the First Amendment. And he [Metzger] told the jury, he said "Ladies and gentlemen, what Mr. Dees is trying to do here is stifle the First Amendment right to free speech. I know what I am saying may not be popular, but I got a right to say that. I'm going to tell you something else that might shock you. I believe that everything that's ever been accomplished in America has been accomplished by white folks - that's amounted to anything of any value. Now you might not agree with me, but that's how I feel. And I think that if we don't do something to stop these mud people" - as he called it - "African Americans, and Asian Americans and Jews, and Hispanics and all these other people, messing up our country, then we are going to see the downfall of one of the greatest nations on earth..."

Dees' admission that "if I had to use the simple facts of my case I might not have won it" points out how unjustly civil law is being manipulated by people like Dees.

At this point Dees bragged about the racially mixed jury he was able to get seated in the Metzger trial and made the imminently disputable claim that "America is a great nation because of diversity, not in spite of diversity." He continued:

... And I asked that jury to return a verdict against Tom Metzger and his White Aryan Resistance hate group. I asked them to make it so big that they could build a wall around his compound down at Fallbrook, California with those dollars stacked up the size of that verdict that he couldn't ever get out of.

They returned a verdict of twelve and a half million dollars. Now, I haven't collected it yet. [Laughter]

... In that case we had the help of the Anti- Defamation League and a lot of other volunteer lawyers as well. The Oregon Supreme Court recently upheld that verdict.

We've taken Mr. Metzger's house, his land and we're in the process, as we say in the South, of "cleaning his plow."

What Dees did not say in relation to the Metzgers was that the case is on its way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

After this Dees talked about the suit against the United Klans of America which resulted in a 7 million dollar judgment. Dees also hinted at other prosecutions against racists in the works at the SPLC.

In closing there was a question and answer period. One man asked the following question:

Q: When you investigate an organization like the Klan, how do you break through their conspiracy of silence that I understand they are very good at maintaining?

Dees: Every case varies. We [The Southern Poverty Law Center] don't really infiltrate them to the point of trying to get somebody on the inside. Each case is different. In the case against Tom Metzger, the young man, David Mazzella...contacted the ADL office in Los Angeles... ...

We had gathered all this information about Metzger's group. We had taped his telephone hotline for about eight years along with the ADL and other groups. We had all their newspapers...

One individual asked a question about the RICO decision in the Supreme Court. Dees said it would be a great tool for lawyers in his line of work and claimed that there was at least one racist groups which he and his associates planned to target using RICO. What Dees didn't say was that racist organizations which have earlier been unable to operate in public due to harassment from Jewish and other groups may now be able to turn the tables. The RICO statutes may be a tool which Aryan groups can effectively employ against their opponents.

Finally I got a chance to get my two cents in and let Morris know that not everyone in the audience was friendly. He had already gotten that impression by that time because Tina and I had not applauded his speech and Dees had spied the tape recorder and was giving Tina dirty looks.

Here is the exchange that took place between Morris and myself:

Wikoff: In spite of the twelve and a half million dollar judgment., Tom Metzger is still producing his newspaper, his hotline and his television show.

Dees: I didn't know that.

Wikoff: You really haven't "cleaned his plow" very well.

Dees: How do you know that? Wikoff: Because they're still on.

Dees: Do you listen to them? Wikoff: Yes I do. Dees: I'm just curious. Do you go to school here?

Wikoff: No. Dees: Oh, I see. [Nervous laughter from the audience as people begin to realize that there are non-sympathetic people in the audience]

Dees was obviously lying when he claimed that he "didn't know" that the W.A.R. Newspaper, the telephone hotline and the Race and Reason television show were still very much in operation. This was apparent to anyone who was paying attention, because Dees bragged in his lecture that the SPLC was constantly monitoring the activities of the Metzgers. Dees could not afford to let the audience know that the activities of the White Aryan Resistance were now more extensive and effective that ever before. The credibility and fundraising ability of the Southern Poverty Law Center depends upon the ability to convince liberal suckers that the SPLC is really stopping the "nasty" racists.

I managed to get in one last jab.

Wikoff: Race and Reason is on television here in Syracuse. It's been on for two years.

Throughout Dees' lecture he assiduously avoided talking about questions of real legal substance. His talk was ultimately nothing more than a pep talk to a crowd of bubble-headed liberal adherents. One would have expected more from Cornell Law School, one of the most prestigious law schools in the country.