Chip Berlet, writing for the
Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), identified Horowitz's Center for the Study of Popular Culture as one of 17 "right-wing foundations and think tanks support[ing] efforts to make bigoted and discredited ideas respectable". Berlet accused Horowitz of blaming
slavery on "'black
Africans … abetted by dark-skinned
Arabs'" and of "attack[ing] minority 'demands for special treatment' as 'only necessary because some blacks can't seem to locate the ladder of opportunity within reach of others,' rejecting the idea that they could be the victims of lingering racism."
[49] Responding with an open letter to
Morris Dees, president of the SPLC, Horowitz stated that his reminder that the slaves transported to America were bought from African and Arab slavers was a response to demands that only whites pay blacks reparations, not to hold Africans and Arabs solely responsible for slavery, and that the statement that he had denied lingering racism was "a calculated and carefully constructed lie." The letter said that Berlet's work was "so tendentious, so filled with transparent misrepresentations and smears that if you continue to post the report you will create for your Southern Poverty Law Center a well-earned reputation as a hate group itself."
[50] The SPLC refused,
[37] and subsequent critical pieces on Berlet and the SPLC have been featured on Horowitz's website and personal blog.
[51][52]
Tim Wise, self-described "anti-racist essayist, lecturer and activist" criticized
[53] Horowitz in the left-wing publication,
Znet for associating with alleged racists, pointing to his acceptance of funding from the
Bradley Foundation, which supported the publication of
The Bell Curve, as well for running a modified piece by
white nationalist Jared Taylor on the media treatment of black-on-white murders. When Horowitz ran the piece, he admitted that the decision to do so would be controversial, but denied that Taylor was a racist, instead arguing that his "
racialism" was an example of
identity politics precipitated by an intellectual surrender to
multiculturalism; Horowitz denied that he and his publication share Taylor's agenda.
[54]