Morris Dees

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Morris Dees : biography

16 December 1936 –

Morris Seligman Dees, Jr. (born December 16, 1936) is the co-founder and chief trial counsel for the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), and a former direct mail marketeer for book publishing. Along with his law partner, Joseph J. Levin Jr., Dees founded the SPLC in 1971,Dees, Morris, and Steve Fiffer. 1991. A Season For Justice. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 132-133. ISBN 0-684-19189-X the start of a legal career dedicated to suing organizations in discrimination cases.

Early life

Dees was born to a farming family in Alabama in 1936. After graduation from the University of Alabama School of Law in 1960, he returned to Montgomery, Alabama and opened a law office.

Media appearances

The story of Dees’ campaigns against white supremacist hate groups was dramatized in a 1991 TV movie entitled Line of Fire: The Morris Dees Story.

The Dees 1991 autobiography A Season for Justice was updated in 2003 with new material about his case against the Aryan Nations in Idaho and reissued as A Lawyer’s Journey: The Morris Dees Story in a biographical series published by the American Bar Association.

Dees’ work was featured on the National Geographic’s "Inside American Terror" in 2008.

Reception

Praise

In an address on March 1, 2007, at the University of Texas School of Law, Judge Keith Ellison described Morris Dees as “his generation’s most valiant and effective soldier in the fight for civil rights and civil liberties.”Judge Keith Ellison. http://www.utexas.edu/law/academics/centers/publicinterest/docs/JudgeEllisonAddressJudgeJusticeReception.pdf

Criticism

Dees has faced criticism that he uses too much of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s fundraising intake as personal income – and even accusations that the SPLC exists mostly as a fundraising vehicle. A 2000 article by Ken Silverstein in Harper’s Magazine, titled "The Church of Morris Dees", alleged that Dees kept the SPLC focused on fighting anti-minority groups like the KKK, instead of on issues like homelessness, 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.", Ken Silverstein, ‘Harper’s Magazine, November 2000

In 2005, Washington Times editor Wesley Pruden called Dees "nothing more than a scam artist."] Q&A transcript], Brian Lamb & Wesley Pruden, June 5, 2005 However, Pruden made this comment after the Southern Poverty Law Center accused him of using The Washington Times to push "extremist, neo-Confederate ideas.""" by Heidi Beirich and Bob Moser, Intelligence Report, Summer 2003, Issue Number: 110, Southern Poverty Law Center. Stephen Bright, an Atlanta-based civil rights attorney, 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.", Ken Silverstein, Harper’s Magazine blog, November 2, 2007

Political activity

Dees started off in politics working for Southern politician George Wallace in 1958. He served as Senator George McGovern’s national finance director in 1972, President Jimmy Carter’s national finance director in 1976, and as national finance chairman for Senator Ted Kennedy’s 1980 Democratic primary presidential campaign against Carter. Dees ran for the board of the Sierra Club as a protest candidate in 2004, qualifying by petition. His campaign was not designed to win election, but to publicize the views of some board members and candidates running for election in a bid to return population control to the organization’s agenda. Dees received 7554 votes, coming in 16th out of 17 candidates in the election.

Footnotes

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Civil lawsuit strategy