Anti-terror, hate specialist at CWC

Heidi Beirich, who leads one of the most highly regarded non-governmental operations monitoring hate groups and extremism in the world, is the featured speaker at Central Wyoming College Monday, Feb. 27.
 
Beirich, who speaks at 7 p.m. in the CWC Little Theatre, is the director of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project, which according to the National Review is “one of the most respected anti-terror organizations in the world.”
 
Sponsored by the CWC Diversity Committee, the subject of the Beirich lecture is “The Rising Tide of Intolerance in America.” The presentation is free and open to the public.
 
Beirich oversees the production of SPLC’s award-winning quarterly investigative journal, Intelligence Report, its Hatewatch blog and its annual hate group list. During her residency at CWC, Beirich is speaking to a number of classes.
 
An expert on white nationalism, nativism and the racist neo-Confederate movement, Beirich also acts as a key SPLC spokeswoman for issues involving extremism. She has appeared on numerous television news programs and is regularly quoted by journalists and scholars in both the United States and abroad.
 
Beirich joined the SPLC staff in 1999 after earning a Ph.D. in political science from Purdue University, where she specialized in the study of white nationalism and neofascism in Europe and North America.
 
She spent a year in Spain researching her dissertation on how the Spanish Constitutional Court helped rid that country of its fascist legacy. She also holds MA degrees in economics and political science. She earned her A.B. from the University of California, Berkeley.
Beirich co-edited Neo-Confederacy: A Critical Introduction, published by the University of Texas Press in 2008, and has been published in several academic journals. She has taught at three major universities and has worked with other non-profits dedicated to combating human rights violations and poverty.