Classification as a Hate Group
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) currently classifies FAIR as a hate group, citing the white supremacist beliefs of its founder. In 1982, John Tanton wrote "As Whites see their power and control over their lives declining, will they simply go quietly into the night? Or will there be an explosion."[15] Later, in a 1993 memo to another board member, Tanton said that "Projections by the U.S. Census Bureau show that midway into the next century, the current European-American majority will become a minority … This is unacceptable; we decline to bequeath to our children minority status in their own land." These statements among other documents led the SPLC to believe that the true intent of Tanton's anti-immigration advocacy was to "to limit the number of nonwhites living in the U.S.", hence the classification as a hate group.
FAIR responded to this charge by stating that there is no factual basis for the accusation; that FAIR has compiled a long record of mainstream credibility and respect on immigration issues and has always opposed discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, or religion; and that the accusation is an "act of desperation, resulting from the SPLC's failure to convince the American people of their viewpoint.
