Back to the BYU Cougars Newsfeed

The founder of Proud Boys, which describes its members as ‘Western chauvinists,’ is suing SPLC over hate group label

Montgomery, Ala. • The founder of a far-right men’s group filed a defamation lawsuit Monday against the Southern Poverty Law Center for labeling the organization as a hate group, in the latest attempt to use litigation to fight the extremist label.

Gavin McInnes, founder of the Proud Boys — an organization that describes its members as “Western chauvinists” — contends in the lawsuit that he was banned from social media platforms and saw his livelihood suffer after getting the designation from the SPLC.

“What they do is they cast this wide net of ‘everyone’s a Nazi’ and they start destroying lives,” McInnes said during a news conference in front of the SPLC building in Montgomery, Ala.