American Free Press Interviews Glen Allen On His Lawsuit Against the SPLC

This interview first appeared in American Free Press, April 14,2019.

Glen K. Allen, an attorney in Baltimore, Maryland, is the plaintiff in a lawsuit he filed in December 2018 in federal court in Maryland against Heidi Beirich, Mark Potok, and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). Recently, Allen sat down with AFP to talk about his case as well as free speech in the current political environment in the United States.

* * * * *

AFP: Mr. Allen, could you give us a summary of your lawsuit?

Allen: Sure. In August 2016, Heidi Beirich and the SPLC improperly orchestrated my termination as an attorney for the City of Baltimore, where I was doing competent and ethical work.

The SPLC, in its remarkable arrogance, not only does not deny it did this but has boasted about it on one of its so-called “hate maps,” together, of course, with the most unflattering photo of me it could find. I have brought suit in federal court alleging three federal and six state law claims.

My claims are based on the SPLC’s actions against me but also on its conduct over decades that I contend is inconsistent with its status as a law firm and a purported 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to an educational mission. So, in essence, I’m seeking to redress the harms done to me but also to vindicate basic principles of free expression and the rule of law.

AFP: You mentioned free expression. Did you have an interest in that subject prior to this case?

Allen: Yes, for half a century I have seen our American traditions of free expression and free assembly as unique and fragile and have advocated constant vigilance to preserve them. I have tried to do my part to protect them.

AFP: Do you recall when you first became interested in these kinds of issues?

Allen: Actually, I do. When I was a young teenager growing up in western Colorado, I became friends with the son of the local judge, Judge William Ela. Judge Ela and his son were active with the Great Books Reading Program created by the University of Chicago and helped get me involved. That opened my eyes to the importance of free and open discussion of even controversial and unpopular ideas. And there was a specific incident that made a deep impression on me. At one point a young man who had burglarized a bookstore was coming before Ela to be sentenced. Burglarizing a bookstore is a bad act, for sure, but to the man’s credit the books he stole were mostly books of philosophy and history. I was invited to the sentencing. Ela said to the young man: “It is within my power to send you to prison for a year or more, but I’m going to give you a break. I’m putting you on probation for three years, but on condition that you read those books you stole, at least most of them, and report on them to your probation officer.” So the guy had to spend the next few years reading these books of philosophy and history and trying to understand them.

AFP: What was the effect?

Allen: He never got in trouble with the law again.

AFP: Maybe more judges should try that approach.

Allen: You are probably right. Judge Ela was a great judge.

AFP: Was it experiences like that which led you to law school?

Allen: Yes, but it took a while. After graduating from a liberal arts college as a philosophy major, after a few years’ delay I joined the Army as an enlisted man. I learned a lot in the Army that I didn’t learn at a liberal arts college, believe me, and not all of it was enjoyable. But the Army did carry through on its promise to station me in Germany, where I lived for about a year off-post with a German family. I learned a little about World War II from the Germans’ point of view. That experience confirmed me in my views of the importance of traditions of free speech that allow even highly unpopular perspectives to be expressed.

AFP: And from the Army into law school?

Allen: Yes.

AFP: Did you focus on the First Amendment in law school?

Allen: Well, one takes a range of classes in law school, but yes, the First Amendment was the topic I loved best. In particular I became fascinated by the role of two famed Supreme Court justices, Oliver Wendell Holmes and Louis Brandeis, in the development of our country’s First Amendment doctrines.

AFP: Justice Holmes, the Civil War hero and Yankee from Olympus?

Allen: That’s the man. Few people realize that until the dissents of Holmes and Brandeis a hundred years ago in several cases relating to criminal sentences for persons protesting America’s entry into World War I, the First Amendment was basically a dead letter, toothless and rarely invoked. Holmes breathed life into it with his metaphor of the marketplace of ideas and his contention that the First Amendment protects, above all, the views we hate. He and Brandeis set our courts on a free speech path unlike any other in the world.

AFP: In what respects is the First Amendment so unique?

Allen: Many. For one, in every other tradition with which I am familiar—in Canada, for example—it is permissible to criminalize or restrict speech based on the offensiveness of the speech—that is, the hurt feelings of the audience—and principles of good order, that is, how disruptive the speech may be. But under our leading Supreme Court cases, the offended and hostile reactions of an audience to speech are not reasons to limit the speech but the exact opposite—reasons it must be protected. And I would say American cases go beyond the traditions of other nations in protecting against vague laws that keep people guessing and therefore chill their willingness to express themselves.

AFP: What is your assessment of the state of free expression and free assembly in the U.S. today?

Allen: Ominous. The threats arise not so much from the courts, although there are some troubling developments there, but from massive surveillance and censorship organizations such as the SPLC and from deplatforming by social media and payment processing giants such as Twitter, Facebook, and PayPal, which are not, so they contend, subject to First Amendment principles.

Worse yet, these two sources of speech suppression are working together. The result is a complete abandonment of the principles that Holmes and Brandeis helped establish. These groups will accept a marketplace of ideas only if they control the marketplace. And chilling free expression is exactly what the SPLC aims to do. It creates a climate of fear by shaming people in public and harming them in their vocations as a warning to others not to step beyond the SPLC’s approved boundaries.

AFP: What is to be done?

Allen: There is no denying we are in a perilous environment for free speech and assembly. Unfortunately, it is likely to get worse before it gets better. One critical step must be to state loudly and clearly that we are opposed to violence and intimidation as means to resolve our differences. If we do, I think in time the tide will turn, because the enemies of free expression can’t keep themselves from ever more onerous restrictions on unapproved viewpoints. We must remain defiant, speaking our mind forthrightly, providing moral and financial support to others across the political spectrum who suffer for speaking their minds forthrightly, and calling out those who would enforce their narrow orthodoxies.

AFP: Has your lawsuit against the SPLC received much publicity?

Allen: Virtually none from the mainstream media, which is quite a contrast to the dozen calls I received from mainstream reporters when the SPLC orchestrated a media frenzy against me in August 2016. They were on me like piranhas. There were even reporters outside my house with television cameras. But now, when I’ve fought back with a lawsuit, only a few non-mainstream media, such as AFP and PJ Media, have taken an interest. And God bless you for doing so.

AFP: How can our readers help you?

Allen: My legal expenses are significant. The SPLC—with its bulging bank accounts of over $450 million—does not need to worry about legal expenses, but I do. Please consider a donation to www.breathing-space-for-dissent.com, which is my website. Your readers should first consider giving financial support to 501(c)(3) nonprofits such as the Free Expression Foundation Inc. (P.O. Box 1479, Upper Marlboro, Md. 20772), which helps causes such as mine.

16 replies
  1. Sophie Johnson
    Sophie Johnson says:

    Attorney Allen is absolutely right to confront the ill-treatment of him by SPLC individuals. He does exceptionally well to defend his right to free speech, and that right in principle, in terms of the First Amendment. It is, though, curious to see that the First Amendment is not doing a better job against the violence on free speech that is being practised in Europe by the inane national off-shoots of the European Commission on Human Rights (ECHR).

    The national legislations that have existed to protect the basic human rights of freedom of expression and the freedom of assembly have been floored by the ECHR-derived laws of European countries, and by the legislative overridings of the First Amendment in the USA. The culprits in both jurisdictions are the ‘hate-speach’ hunting and ‘hurt-feelings’ protecting laws that enjoy the favour of the courts in both. The SPLC, and in England the CAA, are the beneficiaries of those inane laws, and of the courts. Free-speech seeking individuals are their victims.

    These free-speech destroying ‘hate’ laws are vicious. In England they have seen the gaoling of fine upstanding Englishman Jez Turner, a military man of twelve years, and the obscene legal and media hounding of musician Alison Chabloz. It appears that Attorney Allen is getting the same treatment in the US.

    In short, we see the courts of both countries squarely on the side of the destroyers of free speech, the CAA and the SPLC. And, of course, the mainstream media champion the destroyers. So what is the point of court action in defence of free speech? Tactically, there is no hope in that. The media will ensure that few people will even hear of proceedings there in the interest of free speech.

    My view is that there is no point in court action. Confrontation of governments that are giving the destroyers of our freedoms their fulsome support is the only way forward. The French Gilets Jaunes have shown us the way. We should do as they do.

    • Richard B
      Richard B says:

      “So what is the point of court action in defence of free speech? Tactically, there is no hope in that.”
      “So what is the point of court action in defence of free speech? Tactically, there is no hope in that.”

      “Confrontation of governments that are giving the destroyers of our freedoms their fulsome support is the only way forward. The French Gilets Jaunes have shown us the way. We should do as they do.”

      You’re probably right.

      Mr. Allen spoke of opposing violence and intimidation. That’s certainly the civilized approach, in as much as civilization is the circumnavigation of the use of force (which means the hostile elite is literally uncivilized, barbaric).

      Unfortunately, it automatically puts those defending our basic freedoms into the position of being physically attacked, possibly even murdered (and it could even well be with impunity, you can count on that as at least a strong possibility), or imprisoned, which might end up in murder, since such defenders would be in a place filled with hardened criminals. In short, they’d be outnumbered and defenseless.

      Of course, the hostile elite knows this (hence their barbarism; which for me is the reason they simply will not be able to hold onto the civilization they’ve basically stolen).

      The fact of the matter is, we as a people are an occupied territory. And the only way to liberate an occupied territory is with aggression.

      But how is this possible without the resources or oganization?

      Until we’re able to answer that question with words and actions we’re left with Mr. Allens very civilized but also very dangerous approach.

      We’re truly between the sword and the wall.

      If this doesn’t bring out the best in us, nothing will.

  2. Bruno
    Bruno says:

    I take my hat off to Mr. Allan. Perhaps it was diplomatic to mention Brandeis. Of course, he knows Brandeis was an Anti- majorityite and from the 5th Column. The remarks from Sophie about Ła CessPool Grandę hit the subject nail on the Head.

  3. Curmudgeon
    Curmudgeon says:

    A point of clarification on the contention that in Canada, we don´t have the same free speech rights as the US. In theory, we do.
    Fundamental freedoms
    2. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:
    (a) freedom of conscience and religion;
    (b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;
    (c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and
    (d) freedom of association.

    The problem we have is that our court system, and the Supreme Court in particular, is, at minimum, as politicized as the US courts. In the late 80´s our Supreme Court held that Ernst Zundel had the right to make statements questioning the Holocaust. Since that time, laws have been introduced restricting that and similar speech, and the Supreme Court has been silent or upheld those repressive laws. The irony, of course, is that the1982 Constitutional Amendment creating our Charter of rights, also took away the right of Parliament to be the sole creator of law, and passed that on to the Supreme Court. It has been our Supreme Court, not legislation that has romoved our right to free speech.

    Good luck to Mr. Allen.

    • Charles Frey
      Charles Frey says:

      The photo of Ernst, in a full kangaroo suit on the steps of the Supreme Court of Canada: apt and timeless.

  4. TJ
    TJ says:

    A natural right is viewed as existing prior to any government or legal documents. A “right” today is a permission granted by the State. It stems from legal positivism [the state “posits” something and that makes it true!] These positive “rights” [similar to civil rights] are made up out of whole cloth, like the fake money is “posited” up out of whole cloth].

    A natural right is/was viewed as unalienable and cannot be removed by any act of any government.

    The UN Declaration of Human Rights has something to say about rights to free speech:

    Article 19: | Universal Declaration of Human Rights | “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions with-out interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” [This is a posited right and has nothing to do with natural rights of the Founders. The first amendment recognizes pre-existing rights].

    [from Article 29]: “These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.” So, you have freedom of speech up to the point where it goes against the United Nations- for us, all the time. . .Meaning there is no RIGHT to freedom of speech. . .

    • Richard B
      Richard B says:

      “A natural right is viewed as existing prior to any government or legal documents.

      A “right” today is a permission granted by the State. It stems from legal positivism [the state “posits” something and that makes it true!] These positive “rights” [similar to civil rights] are made up out of whole cloth, like the fake money is “posited” up out of whole cloth].”

      Ok. If they are made up out of whole cloth, what are the natural rights made up out of?

      The fact is, both natural rights and legal rights are the products of human behavior, specifically verbal behavior. They’re human creations.
      And their meanings are determined by human beings.

      It’s very common to hear people say that history is written by the victors. But, more importantly, far more importantly, explanations that have to be obeyed come from power centers.

      If you want people to believe in natural rights you have to take the power back and force them to (in the event that they don’t share your point of view).

      This is why explanation itself is inseperable from power and the control of human behavior.

      For this reason, it would help for us to know about the conditions of explanation itself. But where can you learn that today? Certainly not at any teaching-learning institution.

      The world has never been more complex and unpredictable. What are our chances of holding onto the social-institutions that make living in that complex and unpredictable world possible if we’re not allowed to know about some without which we can not survive, ie; explanation?

      We shouldn’t laugh at the dinosaurs for getting themselves extinct. After all, they lasted a lot longer than we have so far.

    • Charlie
      Charlie says:

      “A natural right is viewed as existing prior to any government or legal documents.”

      No. A “natural right” is viewed as what a Christian is granted by the creator. Special permissions are granted by the jooz and supersede and strike down what you believe to be “natural rights” in certainly all societies controlled by the joo. You are not a “free man” unless you serve the joo first and foremost. Any other rights you “merely think” you have might be granted to you but not until first appearing before a board of jooz and making an appeal. You will then be presented with a monetary amount that must be paid to the joo to practice those “privileges”. They are only temporarily granted to you. Note that these privileges can and frequently are revoked if you do not behave as a goyish.

      Only a joo has “rights” and those rights are to subjugate the goyish.

  5. Richard B
    Richard B says:

    In any abusive, Master/Slave relationship you’ll find 3 categories with 3 attributes each. Those in power* will
    1. Victimize – Blame Victim – Play Victim
    2. Destroy the Evidence – Control the Narrative – Enforce the Law (on anyone looking for evidence to question the narrative).
    3. Demand to be: Placed Above Criticism – Loved Unconditionally – Blindly Obeyed.
    And, being in power, they’re in a position to effectuate those demands.
    *This pattern obtains in any culture’s social-institutions, family, education (K-12 to Phd), business, government.
    In short, all cultures have been cultures of blind obedience to authority.
    ONLY in the geographical areas of Western Europe and North America has their been an attempt to invert the sanctions of economic deprivation, imprisonment, torture, and death, associated with those cultures.
    In doing so European man (and his geographical extensions)
    created cultures of individiual conscience, so that the development of the individual would enhance, not undermine, group cohesion.
    The inversion of those sanctions were, Economic Ease, The Privileges of Freedom, Respect for the Individual, and Respect for Life (in the form of liberty and the pursuit of happiness; which has since been acknowledged as never capable of perfect and final achievement, thereby requiring continuous learning, change and growth).

    It is THIS that we are defending!

    What can they possibly say to that?
    Nothing.
    And that’s why they’re pulling all the stops to shut us up and take us out.
    It’s also why the rumblings in the distance of justifiable outrage are growing louder and getting closer.

  6. Charles Frey
    Charles Frey says:

    It would be very informative, if Mr. Allen would tell us here, whether the firing of the top guns at SPLC, at that given time, was organized so as to delete them from his list of Defendants on his Claim[s].

    • Chris M
      Chris M says:

      It’s doubltful commenting on that would help his case.
      But it’s an interesting point and you’re probably right.

      If they simply resigned the timing would raise some eyebrows. They’re nothing if not clever. But beyond that they really are a mediocre and unimpressive people. Same goes for the jumped up White trash useful idiot shabbos goy who shill for them.

  7. Heh
    Heh says:

    Time to kick the jew where it hurts the most – i.e. in the wallet – and of course all so-called hate speech and holocaust denial laws must be overturned all across the white christian world 😀

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