Morris Dees | |
|---|---|
 Dees in 2015 | |
| Born | Morris Seligman Dees Jr. (1936-12-16)December 16, 1936 (age 88) Shorter, Alabama, U.S.[1] |
| Alma mater | University of Alabama (LLB) |
| Occupation(s) | Civil and political rights,social justiceactivist |
| Known for | Founder of theSouthern Poverty Law Center |
Morris Seligman Dees Jr. (born December 16, 1936) is an American attorney known as the co-founder and former chief trial counsel for theSouthern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), based inMontgomery, Alabama. He ran adirect marketing firm before founding SPLC.[2] Along with his law partner, Joseph J. Levin Jr., Dees founded the SPLC in 1971.[3]: 132–33 Dees and his colleagues at the SPLC have been "credited with devising innovative ways to cripplehate groups" such as theKu Klux Klan, particularly by using "damage litigation".[4]
On 14 March 2019 the SPLC announced that Dees had been fired from the organization and the SPLC would hire an "outside organization" to assess the SPLC's workplace climate.[5][6][7] Former employees alleged that Dees was "complicit" in harassment and racial discrimination, and said that at least one female employee had accused him ofsexual harassment.[8]
Dees was born in 1936 inShorter, Alabama, the son of Annie Ruth (Frazer) and Morris Seligman Dees Sr., tenant cotton farmers.[2][9] His family wasBaptist.[10] His grandfather named his son "Morris Seligman" after a Jewish friend.[11] After graduatingmagna cum laude from theUniversity of Alabama School of Law in 1960,[12] Dees returned toMontgomery, Alabama, where he opened a law office.
Dees ran a direct mail anddirect marketing business, Fuller & Dees Marketing Group, withMillard Fuller. He bought Fuller out in 1964 for $1 million, much of which Fuller donated to charity.[13] After what Dees described in hisautobiography as "a night of soul searching at a snowed-inCincinnati airport" in 1967, he sold the company in 1969 toTimes Mirror, the parent company of theLos Angeles Times. While major civil rights legislation had been passed, Dees knew there were many injustices and organizations that continued to oppose minority rights. He used the revenue from the sale to found a legal firm (that eventually became theSouthern Poverty Law Center) in 1971.[14]Dees's former marketing firm partnerMillard Fuller foundedHabitat for Humanity International in 1976 and served there in executive roles until 2005.
Dees was active as[vague] financial director ofGeorge McGovern's presidential campaign in 1972. He was national finance director forJimmy Carter's presidential campaign in 1976, and he was finance chairman forEdward Kennedy's presidential campaign in 1980.[13]
In his 1991 autobiography[3]: 84–85 Dees wrote that in 1962, as a young lawyer, he had representedKu Klux Klan member Claude Henley, who faced federal charges for attackingFreedom Riders in an incident documented by aLife magazine photographer. When Dees learned that another lawyer had asked for $15,000 to represent Henley, Dees offered to do the job for $5,000, which was roughly the median household annual salary in America at the time. Dees's defense helped Henley gain an acquittal. Dees later said he had an "epiphany" and regretted defending Henley.
In 1969, Dees sued theYoung Men's Christian Association (YMCA) in Montgomery, Alabama, at the request of African-American civil rights activistMary Louise Smith. She said that her son Vincent and nephew Edward[3]: 108 had been refused admission to attend a YMCA summer camp.[15] The YMCA was a private organization and therefore not bound by the provisions of theCivil Rights Act of 1964,[16] which prohibited racial discrimination in public facilities.[17]
But Dees discovered that, in order to avoid desegregating its recreational facilities,[15] the city of Montgomery had signed a secret agreement with the YMCA to operate them as private facilities and on the city's behalf.[17] He introduced evidence of this agreement in court and challenged the constitutionality of the YMCA's position. The trial court ruled that the YMCA effectively had a "municipal charter" by this agreement with the city, and was therefore bound by theFourteenth Amendment (and the Civil Rights Act) to desegregate its facilities.[18] TheUnited States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit(α) partly affirmed the trial judge's finding, reversing his order that the YMCA useaffirmative action to racially integrate its board of directors.[3]: 125 According to historian Timothy Minchin, Dees was "emboldened by this victory" when he founded the SPLC in 1971.[17]
Dees was one of the principal architects of a strategy that used civil lawsuits to secure a court judgment for monetary damages against an organization for a wrongful act. The courts could potentially seize organization assets in order to gain payment of the judgment. Dees said that the aim was to gain large judgements which would "clean their clock".[19]
In 1987, the SPLC and Dees sued theUnited Klans of America (UKA) along withMichael Figures as co-counsel and won a $7 million judgment forBeulah Mae Donald, the mother ofMichael Donald, an African American who had beenlynched by UKA members in Alabama.[20][21][22] The judgment bankrupted UKA and its national headquarters building was sold for $51,875.[13][23]
A decade later, in 1991, Dees obtained a judgment of $12 million againstTom and John Metzger and theWhite Aryan Resistance.[20] He also helped secure a $6.5 million judgment in 2001 against theAryan Nations. Dees's most famous cases have involved landmark damage awards that have driven several[vague] prominentneo-Nazi groups intobankruptcy, effectively causing them to disband.[citation needed]
Dees's critics have included theMontgomery Advertiser, which has portrayed his work with the SPLC as self-promotional, contending that Dees exaggerates the threat of hate groups.[4] In 1994, theMontgomery Advertiser ran a series alleging that Dees discriminated against the SPLC's black employees, some of whom "felt threatened and banded together".[24]
A 2000 article byKen Silverstein inHarper's Magazine alleged that Dees kept the SPLC focused on fighting anti-minority groups such as the KKK, instead of focusing on issues likehomelessness, mostly because of the greater fundraising potential of the former. The article also claimed that the SPLC "spends twice as much on fund-raising – $5.76 million last year – as it does on legal services for victims of civil rights abuses".[25]Stephen Bright, an Atlanta-based civil rights attorney and former president of theSouthern Center for Human Rights, wrote in 2007 that Dees was "a con man and fraud", who "has taken advantage of naive, well-meaning people – some of moderate or low incomes – who believe his pitches and give to his $175-million operation".[25]
These comments were made after a controversy pitting Dees against much of the civil rights community in his support of the nomination ofEdward E. Carnes to be a federal appeals court judge. Carnes was a well-known proponent of the death penalty, which has been shown to be disproportionately applied as a sentence against African-American men.[26]
In 2019, the SPLC fired Dees for undisclosed reasons, and said the firm would hire an "outside organization" to investigate its workplace practices. Before the firing, two dozen employees had complained to management about concerns of "mistreatment, sexual harassment, gender discrimination, and racism" which threatened SPLC's moral authority and integrity.[27] A former employee said that Dees had a "reputation for hitting on young women" and that his ouster came "amid a staff revolt over the mistreatment of non-white and female employees" by Dees and SPLC leadership.[28]
Dees's legal actions againstracial nationalist organizations have motivated many of them to target him for assassination. As a result, he has received numerous death threats from some of these groups.[29] In 2007, Dees said that more than 30 people had been jailed in connection with plots to either kill him or blow up the center,[30] although a Montgomery police spokesman said he was not aware that the SPLC had informed the police of threats.[30] TheMontgomery Advertiser reported that a letter which described such a plot was sent byHal Turner, a radio talk show host, apaid FBI informant and awhite supremacist, on July 29, 2007, after the SPLC filed a lawsuit against theImperial Klans of America (IKA) inMeade County, Kentucky.[30] During the IKA trial, a former member of the IKA said that the Klan head told him to kill Dees.[31] Dees and William F. McMurry represented the plaintiff in the trial against the IKA in November 2008.[32]
In 1958, Dees started his political career by working for the Southern politicianGeorge Wallace, later the governor of Alabama.[33] Indicating his change of direction, in 1972 he served as SenatorGeorge McGovern's national finance director,[34] in 1976 as PresidentJimmy Carter's national finance director, and in 1980 as national finance chairman for SenatorTed Kennedy's Democraticprimary presidential campaign against Carter.[35]
In 2004 Dees ran for the board of theSierra Club as a protest candidate, qualifying bypetition.[36]
In the early 21st century, Dees has presented numerous lectures on civil rights and justice at universities.[42][43][44] In 2009, he was the keynote speaker at the graduation ceremony forSan Francisco State University.[45] He was identified as a Freedom Hero byThe My Hero Project.[46]
TheTV movie titledLine of Fire: The Morris Dees Story (1991) dramatized his campaigns againstwhite supremacisthate groups.[47]
Dees's work was featured on theNational Geographic'sInside American Terror in 2008.[48]
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