The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has removed its "Glossary of Extremism and Hate" from its website after numerous complaints from conservatives, including Elon Musk and Donald Trump Jr.
After the assassination of Charlie Kirk, it was discovered that the Glossary included an entry for Turning Point USA, the group founded by Kirk. Musk, Trump, Jr., Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), and other conservatives demanded the entry be removed.
Rather than remove the entry, the ADL deleted the entire Glossary and said that it no longer considers TPUSA an “extremist group.”
“With over 1,000 entries written over many years, the ADL Glossary of Extremism has served as a source of high-level information on a wide range of topics for years. At the same time, an increasing number of entries in the Glossary were outdated. We also saw a number of entries intentionally misrepresented and misused,” the spokesperson told Jewish Insider. “At ADL, we always are looking for how we can and should do things better. That’s why we are moving to retire the Glossary effectively immediately. This will allow ADL to explore new strategies.”
Caught with their knickers down, ADL retreated. TPUSA is no more "extremist" or a "hate group" than the Girl Scouts.
However, TPUSA still shows up on a "backgrounder" relating to extremist groups because some of their supporters are still considered "extremist."
The ADL’s page on TPUSA, which will remain on the website, but not as part of a searchable glossary entry, appears in a section about “Extremism, Hate or Terrorism.” Prior to this week, the entry stated: “Since the group’s founding, Kirk has moved further to the right and has promoted numerous conspiracy theories about election fraud and COVID-19 and has demonized the transgender community.”
“Kirk also promotes Christian nationalism: the idea that Christians should dominate the government and other areas of life in the US. TPUSA continues to attract racists to the group. Numerous TPUSA representatives have made bigoted remarks about minority groups and the LGBTQ+ community,” the TPUSA entry continued. “White nationalists have attended TPUSA events, even though the group says it rejects white supremacist ideology.”
As with the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and its notorious "Hate Map," the far-left group is looking for ways to delegitimize a group that opposes its liberal agenda. Branding them as "extremists" or a "hate group" is almost entirely subjective, using less than rigorous scholarship and an eye for headlines.
Charlie Kirk was being blamed not for what he said as much as for what fringe, right-wing elements were using TPUSA for.
The ADL’s webpage about Kirk, which remains active, still says that Kirk “created a vast platform that was used by numerous extremists and far-right conspiracy theorists. A number of such individuals speak and attend his annual AmericaFest and other events sponsored by TPUSA.”
Kirk himself is not the problem. It's the right-wing nuts who attend TPUSA events? Why should that brand Kirk or TPUSA as "extremist" or a "hate group"?
Using that logic, any meeting of the Democratic Party should be tarred as a "hatefest."
The ADL also had a training and intelligence-sharing partnership with the FBI, and Director Kash Patel has now ended it.
James Comey wrote “love letters” to the ADL and embedded FBI agents with them - a group that ran disgraceful ops spying on Americans.
— FBI Director Kash Patel (@FBIDirectorKash) October 1, 2025
That era is OVER. This FBI won’t partner with political fronts masquerading as watchdogs. pic.twitter.com/R6IKpSTfuP
The ADL issued a statement, regretting the severing of ties with the FBI.
“ADL has deep respect for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and law enforcement officers at all levels across the country who work tirelessly every single day to protect all Americans regardless of their ancestry, religion, ethnicity, faith, political affiliation or any other point of difference,” the statement said.
The organization conducts workshops for law enforcement agencies on hate crimes, violent extremism and antisemitism, including a workshop titled “Law Enforcement and Society” that aims to educate officials on the history of the Holocaust and lessons from that period that may be relevant to modern law enforcement agencies.
The Law Enforcement and Society workshop is mandatory for new agents and trainees at the agency’s Quantico base, Comey said in a 2014 speech.
“If this sounds a bit like a love letter to the ADL, it is, and rightly so,” he said in the speech.
The ADL used to be strictly nonpartisan. The organization's loss of even-handedness in politics has damaged its credibility with half the country.
The organization is still a valuable resource for identifying real hate groups and antisemitic individuals. That's its mandate; from now on, it should stick close to that.
