Students land on hate-group watch list

EAST LANSING, Mich., Nov. 13 (UPI) -- A vocal Michigan State University student group has landed alongside Klan factions and neo-Nazis on the Southern Poverty Law Center's active hate groups list.

MSU's chapter of Young Americans for Freedom, a conservative student organization, has sparked debate and campus protests by bringing in speakers deriding homosexuality, Islam and illegal immigrants, the Detroit Free Press reported.

Southern Poverty Law Center's director, Mark Potok, called the chapter "a very virulent, nasty little group," but students told the paper they were not hate-mongers, but rather about "God, home and country."

Law enforcement agencies use the Southern Poverty Law Center list to track extremist group activities, the newspaper said.

"Anyone can make a list," the YAF chapter's financial director, Nate Sherman, wrote in an e-mail to the Free Press. "In fact, the SPLC is on our list of hate groups!"