Research & Analysis

by: Jewel Nesmith April 26, 2016 Fears of extremism, radicalization and mass violence in our schools have unfortunately become all too common for educators and school administrators across the United States. At the same time, information that allows educators to understand the threat and leaves them equipped to address it without perpetuating biases and stereotypes is scarce. In order to fill this gap, the Anti-Defamation League and START (the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism…

by: Oren Segal April 26, 2016 There is fighting and acrimony between supporters of the two most visible websites in the white supremacist movement—Stormfront and The Daily Stormer—over the role of white women. Andrew Anglin, the neo-Nazi who runs The Daily Stormer, has infuriated many white supremacist women by posting articles on his site that attack white women. When a fan of Anglin’s recently asked on Stormfront why that website seemed to be deleting posts referencing…

by: Oren Segal April 25, 2016 Marking the anniversary week of Adolf Hitler’s April 20th birthday, several neo-Nazi and Klan groups held collaborative events over the weekend of April 23. Four such events were held within approximately 150 miles of one another in north Alabama and central Georgia.   The United Klans of America (UKA) hosted a private event in Alabama which included a cross burning and several Klan weddings.  The event was open to all members of the Black and…

by: Mark Pitcavage April 20, 2016 On April 20, the U.S. Treasury Department announced that famous abolitionist and rescuer of slaves Harriet Tubman will be the new face of the $20 bill, replacing Andrew Jackson (who moves to the bill’s back). The move is intended to answer a long-standing call for more diversity on America’s paper currency. Tubman, a former slave herself, helped hundreds of other slaves escape into freedom. Initial reactions were largely positive—but not…

by: Mark Pitcavage April 13, 2016   In the popular imagination, the bomb is the weapon typically associated with terrorists or extremists—but in the U.S. extremists seem to be killing more people with firearms than with any other weapon, and that use may be increasing. It is certainly true that many of the high-profile terrorist attacks in the United States over the past century have been bombings, including the 1919 anarchist bombing campaign, the 1963 16th Street…

March 28, 2016 Updated: July 05, 2017 Andrew Auernheimer (aka Weev) is doing his best to escalate the increasingly fraught battle between CNN and the anonymous Reddit poster who created a video clip of President Trump wrestling "CNN" to the ground. Auernheimer threatened CNN on the Daily Stormer, the neo-Nazi website, giving the network one week to fulfill a range of demands, including firing everyone involved in the Reddit story, creating a college scholarship for the Reddit poster, and…

by: Marilyn Mayo March 25, 2016 Update — 3/28/16: Hacker Andrew Auern­heimer has claimed credit for exploit­ing net­work print­ers at these col­leges to print these flyers. More information available here. On Thursday, March 24, a number of campuses around the country received an anti-Semitic flyer that blamed Jews for destroying the country “through mass immigration and degeneracy.” The flyer asks people to “join us in the struggle for global…

by: Oren Segal March 25, 2016 It’s tough being born as a teenager. Yesterday, Microsoft launched its new artificial intelligence (AI) computer bot - named Tay and envisioned as a teenage girl – and she had a very rough first day.  She was immediately besieged by excited techies, the curious and the haters. In a few hours, she was drawn into tens of thousands of exchanges. In the process, racists, anti-Semites, misogynists and other haters manipulated her into repeating…

by: Mark Pitcavage March 21, 2016 Federal prosecutors in Portland, Oregon, obtained a 19-count grand jury indictment in mid-March against Winston Shrout, a Hillsboro, Oregon, resident and one of the most prominent sovereign citizen gurus in the United States, a man whose videos and seminars have attracted thousands of people to the anti-government extremist movement. Shrout was charged with 13 counts of using fictitious financial instruments in connection with an alleged debt elimination…

by: Oren Segal March 07, 2016 On March 12, the Anti-Defamation League will play a key role at the first South by Southwest (SXSW) Online Harassment Summit.  In a series of panels at this day-long event, the Summit will focus attention on various manifestations of hate online, including everything from cyberbullying to the sale of offensive merchandise to hate speech on social media to online extremist recruitment and propaganda.  The overarching goal will be to identify the most…

by: Mark Pitcavage March 04, 2016 Updated March 22, 2016, to reflect additional charges and defendants. In early March, federal prosecutors in Las Vegas announced charges against 14 anti-government extremists from a variety of states in connection with a 2014 armed standoff between the federal government and supporters of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy at Bundy’s ranch.  Prosecutors added additional defendants later in the month.  As of March 22, 19 people have been indicted…

by: Oren Segal March 02, 2016 The Loyal White Knights (LWK) had every intention of holding a “White Lives Do Matter” protest on Saturday, February 27, 2016, at Pearson Park in Anaheim, California. But before the event could kick off, a bloody brawl erupted between Klan supporters and counter-protesters. Klansmen, barely able to exit their cars, were suddenly swarmed by counter-protesters who wrestled Bill Hagan, the California LWK’s Grand Dragon, to the ground. Other Klan…