When the Southern Poverty Law Center ousted founder Morris Dees on Wednesday, the center’s president, Richard Cohen, was circumspect about the cause.

In a public statement posted on its website and emailed to the media late Thursday, Cohen said Dees, who co-founded the Montgomery, Alabama, civil rights organization that has battled the Ku Klux Klan and other hate groups for nearly 50 years, “is no longer working at the SPLC.”