Reports of increased hate crimes nationwide – including incidents on college campuses after Barack Obama’s victory – are prompting calls for universities to step up hate crime reporting and for more federal action on the issue.
“Even as we celebrate the demonstration of diversity in this country by electing the first African American president, the vestiges of a tragic period in our history continues to rear its hideous head,” said Hilary Shelton, director of the NAACP Washington bureau, at a conference Monday focusing attention on hate crimes nationwide.
Within higher education, four North Carolina State University students scribbled anti-Obama comments in a tunnel reserved for free speech expression. One comment said, “Let’s shoot that (N-word) in the head.” A University of Alabama professor said an Obama poster on her office door was replaced by a poster defaced with a death threat and a racial slur.
Hate speech on school buses and the beating of a New York teenager on election night by four white men shouting ‘Obama’ are among other recent youth-focused hate incidents.
“Schools and colleges are the third most frequent location for hate crimes,” said Michael Lieberman, Washington counsel for the Anti-Defamation League.
According to new data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, schools and colleges were the site of 859 hate crimes in 2007 – more than 11 percent of all such crimes reported nationwide. Only homes and streets were the sites of more hate crimes than educational facilities.
Of the 859 hate acts at schools and colleges last year, 468 – or more than half – involved race, the FBI says.
