Federal Court Says GuideStar Was Within Legal Bounds to Add ‘Hate Group’ Labels

GuideStar, the charity-information site, scored a major victory as a federal court ruled it was in legal bounds to put a hate label on a nonprofit’s profile.

A federal judge in Virginia dismissed a lawsuit against GuideStar pursued by the conservative Christian legal-defense group Liberty Counsel.

Liberty Counsel sued after a label was placed on its GuideStar profile page noting that the legal organization had been designated a hate group for its anti-LGBTQ stances. Liberty Counsel said the label was defamatory and hurt its reputation. It also charged that the label violated a federal law against unfair competition and false advertising.

Judge Raymond Jackson of the Federal District Court in Norfolk, Va., however, said the designation was “an informative statement” and “not commercial speech” in his ruling— and rejected Liberty Council’s claim that its business was affected. Mr. Jackson also dismissed the legal group’s defamation claim.

Liberty Counsel said in statement Wednesday that it is considering an appeal of the decision.

Firestorm Over Hate Labels

GuideStar added warning banners last year to the profile pages of 46 organizations, including Liberty Counsel, to notify visitors that the Southern Poverty Law Center had accused the charities of spreading hate . The message directed visitors to the anti-hate group’s website.

GuideStar announced it was pulling the warning labels last June after the designations caused a firestorm among conservative groups that said they had been unfairly targeted.

The nonprofit information site said it backed away from the labels after its staff members had faced threats to their personal safety from opponents of the labels. But Jacob Harold, GuideStar’s chief executive, also acknowledged that there were reasonable disagreements about the fairness of some of the hate-group labels.