The leader of the Southern Poverty Law Center has pleaded not guilty on behalf of the organization to charges that the civil rights group has defrauded donors by failing to disclose that money would be paid to informants inside extremist groups. The group’s interim president and CEO, Bryan Fair, appeared Thursday in federal court in Montgomery. A grand jury indictment was filed April 21 by the U.S. Justice Department. The charges are an extraordinary strike against the organization, which works to combat discrimination and racism particularly in the Deep South. The SPLC has denied wrongdoing. No individuals are charged in the case.

The Voting Rights Act over its six decades became one of the most consequential laws in the nation’s history, preventing discrimination against minorities at the ballot box and helping to elect thousands of Black and Hispanic representatives at all levels of government. On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court knocked out a major pillar of the law that had protected against racial discrimination in voting and representation. It was a decision that came more than a decade after the court undermined another key tenet of the law. Voting and civil rights advocates say the decisions hollow out the law and will lead to a severe erosion of minority representation.