A hate crime is one committed by a person whose motive is discrimination against another person or persons on the basis of race, religion, sexual orientation or national origin or whose act against a person, or persons, grows out of bigotry in race, religion, sexual orientation, or national origin.  Consider the following incidents: 
 

At the University of Oregon in June of 1997, Neo-Nazi skinheads saluted and shouted racial slurs during a music festival that was given to show campus solidarity against all forms of bigotry.  Though concert-goers were frightened, no one pressed charges against the skinheads.   Jim Garcia of the Office of Multicultural Affairs said that Oregon planned on creating the position for an assistant dean of multi-ethnic programs that will help to deal with both reluctance on the part of persons of color in reporting hate crimes. 

At San Diego State University in March 1996, Leah Bharier then a sophomore at the University of Arizona returned to her residence hall to find a swastika graffited on her door.   Bharier alerted the residence hall advisor, who immediately reported the incident to the Housing and Residential Life Office.  A meeting was called to increase the awareness of hate crimes on the campus.  Bharier reported that the meeting was ineffective and that persons were simply not interested in the subject.  Three days later, another Jewish student, Corry Doktor, a junior child development major, found a crossed-out Star of David on her door.  Both Doktor and Bharier were given opportunities to move to another residence hall and the university organized a campus wide tolerance program.   Though no recurring incidents happened with these two students, leaflets were circulated during February condemning African-American History Month and pro-Nazi literature was distributed in the campus library during this period. 

The increase of hate crimes on campus parallels the increase of hate crimes across America. According to the Justice Department, the 1996 figures were as follows: more than 5,000 crimes based on race, 1,400 based on religion and 1,000 based on sexual orientation.  Eighty-four percent of law enforcement agencies reported their data to the Justice Department.  According to the FBI, 61% of the incidents were motivated by race, 16% by religion, 13% by sexual-orientation bias, and 10% by ethnicity/national origin.  The most reported hate crimes are those directed toward African Americans, e.g., the recent lynching of James Byrd, Jr., in Texas 

Three Theories 

Three theories are usually offered for why there has been such a dramatic increase in hate crimes during the past decade.  The first is that Americans understand what a hate crime is and are simply reporting them as such in greater numbers.  Another theory similar to the first is that law enforcement agencies are simply reporting the data more frequently and that there really are no major increases in hate crimes in the U.S. The Hate Crimes Statistics Act of 1990 requires the U.S. Justice Department to obtain and publish data about hate crimes committed across the country. 

A third reason given is more complicated than the first two, but one this author finds as being the most plausible.  This third reason is that the increase in hate crimes is an outgrowth of a general sense among non-African Americans that persons of color and other groups are eroding the fabric of America economically and morally and that violence towards them is justified.  This violence takes the form of physical attacks on persons of color and other groups deemed troublesome to America.  On March 2, 1995, Nobel laureate Toni Morrison said, in a speech while receiving an honorary doctorate from her alma mater, Howard University, that America is moving toward fascism: 
 

In 1995 racism may wear a new dress, buy a new pair of boots, but neither it nor its succubus twin fascism is new or can make anything new.  It can only reproduce the environment that supports it own health: fear, denial and an atmosphere in which its victims have lost the will to fight.

Similar to the 1960s, campuses became the crucible for testing racial views.  Unlike the '60s however, 1990s students are less inclined to support affirmative action programs which seemed to already have worked with the presence of African-American, Yellow, Brown and Red students on campus.  Oprah is on TV, people are wearing 23 on black and red jerseys and the generally held opinion is that persons of color were doing okay.  Proposition 209 in California, Hopwood in Texas and Rush Rooms on campus made opposition to affirmative action fashionable and hip.   Generation X had nothing to do with the African-American prophet who bore this last name 30 years ago, and predominantly white campuses educated 84% of African-American college students whose parents in the 1960s chose historically African-American colleges and universities in overwhelming numbers.  Coupled with the increase of Latino students in states like Florida, and Texas and the Asianization of the public ivies such as Berkeley and Michigan, many white students and their parents feel that equality of opportunity has been achieved in American higher education.  Anecdotal evidence of reverse discrimination adds fuel to the anger of white students and the angry white male made an appearance on the cover of Newsweek during the mid-1990s. 

Campus Cover-ups of Hate Crimes 

Campuses were caught off guard by the increase in the number of hate crimes taking place in the halls of ivy.  Many of them ignored the Federal Campus Security Act of 1990 that required campuses to report crimes.  As late as 1998, five campuses were under investigation for alleged violations of or in violation of reporting crime, particularly hate crimes.  They were Virginia Tech, Moorhead State, Miami University of Ohio, Clemson University and The University of Pennsylvania.  The records of these campuses indicated several violations of reporting crimes.  Senator Robert Torricelli (D-NJ) introduced a bill in 1997 that would force campuses to report hate crimes as part of the mandatory crime reports to the Justice Department.  Torricelli noted the fact that campuses are never anxious to report crime data for fear of jeopardizing recruitment efforts.  Furthermore, despite the fact that there has been a chilling effect on affirmative action on campuses, universities are still seeking students of color in record numbers and reporting hate crimes might influence these recruiting efforts as well.  It is in the best interest of universities to portray a tolerant atmosphere despite intolerant episodes of hate and discrimination against students of color.  The Secret University is one that simply keeps information about racist incidents quiet or localized to the student paper.  The risk in keeping such incidents private is that the rumors accompanying the incidents may be far more damaging than the actual facts about the case.  Rumor can give way to exaggerated incidents regarding what occurs on a campus. 

Rosewood Revisited in Tennessee and Michigan 

During the early 1990s while I was on staff at Vanderbilt University, a false report given by a white female student that she had been molested by an African-American male was circulated.  The student was later evaluated for her mental stability, but it did not occur before racial tensions were high because of the stereotypes conjured up on the part of both African-American and white students.  The rumor was allowed to dissipate, but not before the anger of the African-American  students escalated into overt hostility toward white students particularly among the African-American male students.  Little support and no dialogue was provided by administrators to deal with the racist encounters tendered to African-American males by white students who quickly believed the false report.  I believe that it would have been far better for the administration to publicly acknowledge that no such molestation had taken place; it was a golden opportunity for public education about racism, but the volatility of the situation preventive a public discourse about the incident. 

Perhaps the most infamous example of hate crimes committed on campus began on April 1, 1992, at Olivet College in Olivet Michigan.  Henry Henderson was a student there, at the eye of the racial hurricane that began when a white female student with a history of mental disorders claimed that she had been harassed by an African-American male.  Although her story was never confirmed, it touched off a near race war between African-American and white students on the small campus of 800 students .  African-American students were policed by members of the white Phi Alpha Pi fraternity, the brothers of the sorority sister who claimed harassment.  A few days after the incident, garbage cans were set on fire at opposite ends of the residence hall where the majority of the African-American males lived.  The African-American males escaped harm and managed to put out the fire, but were confronted with shouts of we're tired of the niggers from whites who had undoubtedly set the fires.  A melee broke out after the fire was extinguished and Charles Norfleet, an African-American student, suffered serious eye injury because of the violence. 

The ensuing days brought threats from white fraternities, intimidation by all white students and as Henderson described it, psychological pressure as to what to do.  In the midst of all of this, the administration under President Donald Morris did little or nothing except call a campus wide meeting that broke into chaos and shouting. (Morris later resigned during the fall semester of 1992, under pressure directly attributable to the incident).  Similar to other institutions, Olivet had no plan in place that would deal with such crises and as the days wore on, the incident drew national attention including an appearance by Henderson and others on the Sally Jessie Raphael Show.  

The 50-60 African-American students on the small campus faced many dilemmas during this period.  Little research has been done on the psychological impact that hate crimes have on its victims; the research is usually confined to the physical harm of the incident.  One of the feelings expressed by Henderson was isolation on the part of the African-American students in a rural setting some 150 miles from the nearest population center--Detroit.  Several African-American students who had cultivated friendships with white students, particularly those in interracial dating relationships were shocked by how quickly these associations deteriorated as a result of the incident.  Idris Fountain, an African-American football player on the campus, was quoted as saying, I wouldn't have had many white friends if it weren't for football, but when the fighting broke out, I was every nigger you could think of.  

The week of the incident was one of the longest in my life, Henderson noted, and in a private vote a week later, African-American students decided to leave the campus in mass because of fear for their safety.  It was an agonizing decision, and as Henderson notes, his senior status made the decision even more difficult.  Forty-seven of the 50 some odd African-American students left the campus, and it was not until after they left that an agreement was reached so that no academic credit earned would be lost.  An amazing by-product of the Olivet Incident was how other students residing at different universities came forth to describe incidents that had gone unreported.  Henderson helped form the Michigan African Student Coalition (MASC), a short-lived confederation of students from Oakland University, the University of Detroit and Olivet College who had experienced similar hate crimes on their campuses.   Henderson feels that the vast majority of hate crimes on college campuses go unreported and that there is simply no way to track all of the incidents because of well-oiled public relations offices that continue the myth that the halls of ivy are immune from racist acts. 

Some Suggestions 

Public discourse on campus racial violence should never be hidden, but must be handled in an appropriate manner so that students of color can have a realistic view of the racial atmosphere of the campus.  What can parents do to make sure of this?  They can: 
 

• Consult college catalogues before matriculation for information about the racial climate on the campus
• Contact campus police and demand a copy of its hate crimes report for at least three years
• When possible, talk to recent alumni of color of the institution for a first hand report of racial violence that went unreported on the campus
• Talk to student affairs administrators and inquire about their strategies for dealing with hate crimes on the campus
• Consult the local police (not campus) on whether or not any hate crimes were reported to them in connection with the local university for the past three years