Religious Law Firm Challenges Hate Group Designation

(Source: MIRS.news, Published 03/19/2026) A religious-based law firm told an appellate panel Thursday they’ve suffered reputational harm after Attorney General Dana Nessel labeled them as a hate group.

Robert Muise with the American Freedom Law Center (AFLC), a self-proclaimed Judeo-Christian public interest law firm, said Nessel’s using of her office to target political opponents is inappropriate.

“Michigan Attorney General and Department of Civil Rights are weaponizing their powerful government offices and misusing government resources to target political opponents,” he told the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. “It’s one thing for a partisan private organization like the Southern Poverty Law Center to express its falsehoods about political opponents.

“However, then the Attorney General and the Department of Civil Rights join and officially endorse this partisan attack by lending government resources and then becoming a government enforcement agency … there’s a political attack (and) the injury to (AFLC) is concrete,” he added.

The state argued that the AFLC suffered no harm from Nessel’s 2019 press release that linked the law firm to the Southern Poverty Law Center's hate group list. They lost neither donors nor clients.

Circuit Judge Chad A. Readler twice asked if Nessel believes the AFLC is a hate group.

Assistant Attorney General Kyla Barranco initially replied that Nessel’s 2019 testimony before a Senate Oversight Committee explained her hate crime unit isn’t about prosecution, and that, yes, Nessel “later walked back” some statements.

“I don’t think she believes they are a hate group,” Barranco eventually said. “I think she knows they are on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s list.”

Readler also questioned how a ruling in the AFLC’s favor would impact broader speech that one typically hears from a politician or elected officials, and Muise replied that Nessel’s promise to combat and fight certain groups' differences because she has the law enforcement power of her office.

In 2019, Nessel launched her Hate Crimes Unit, which was tasked with investigating and prosecuting hate crimes. The idea was to review groups identified in the SPLC’s list shown on its Hate Map.

Nessel’s press release, which has since been deleted from the AG’s website, did not mention the AFLC, who was listed on the SPLC’s map, which currently lists the AFLC as being “anti-Muslim.”

U.S. District Judge Paul Maloney dismissed the lawsuit in July 2025 for lack of standing.