The trial of the Rutgers student Dharun Ravi, who secretly videotaped
his roommate Tyler Clementi with another man before Clementi committed
suicide, has raised questions about whether Ravi's actions were a hate
crime or simple boorishness. But some have even questioned whether
there need to be hate crime laws at all. Do they protect against
intimidation and bigotry, or are they unnecessary and unfair?
Why We Need Bias Laws
Wade Henderson is the president and chief executive of the Leadership
Conference on Civil and Human Rights.
March 7, 2012
Hate violence is very personal, with an especially emotional and
psychological impact on the victim — and the victim's community.
That's because hate crimes are intentionally and specifically targeted
at individuals because of their personal, immutable characteristics.
Although the tragic case of Tyler Clementi clearly demonstrates the
need for greater awareness of cyberbullying and digital privacy and
safety, it does not present the typical hate crime paradigm.
Reasonable people can disagree about whether it should be prosecuted
as such.
When these crimes do occur, we must send an unmistakable message that
they matter. Like antidiscrimination laws, hate crime statutes, like
those in 45 states, the District of Columbia, and the recently passed
federal statute, the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes
Prevention Act, are content-neutral, color-blind mechanisms that
appropriately allow society to redress a unique type of wrongful
conduct in a manner befitting that conduct's seriousness.
When these crimes do occur, we must send an unmistakable message that
they matter.We recognize we cannot outlaw hate. However, laws shape
attitudes. And attitudes influence behavior. Strong enforcement of
these laws can have a deterrent impact and limit the potential for a
hate crime incident to explode into a cycle of violence and widespread
community disturbances.
Hate crime laws do not punish thoughts. Americans are free to think
and believe whatever they want. It is only when an individual commits
a crime based on those biased beliefs and intentionally targets
another for violence or vandalism that a hate crime statute applies.
That's why the Supreme Court unanimously upheld hate crime laws
against a First Amendment challenge in 1993.
Hate violence merits priority attention — and hate crime laws help
ensure they receive it.
Even Nonviolent Crime Needs to Be Fought
Hayley Gorenberg is the deputy legal director of Lambda Legal, a
civil rights group for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.
March 7, 2012
Controversy accompanies prosecutions under hate crime laws, and
perhaps that's inevitable; the pattern of discrimination that shows
people have been targeted based upon their personal traits springs
from prejudices we have not conquered. The Supreme Court has said, in
Wisconsin v. Mitchell, that we mete out extra punishment for hate
crimes because they can "provoke retaliatory crimes, inflict distinct
emotional harms on their victims, and incite community unrest.''
Thousands upon thousands of lesbians, gay men and transgender people
have had their lives scarred by discrimination, and countless died
violent deaths decades before young Matthew Shepard was robbed,
pistol-whipped and strung up on a fence to die because he was gay. Yet
even after that murder made headlines, it took more than 10 years to
pass the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention
Act in 2009, which, for the first time, applied federal hate crime law
to crimes motivated by a victim's actual or perceived sexual
orientation or gender identity.
It's possible to strike deep at one's core without a bullet or a knife
blade.Even in the face of gruesome crimes it was hard to get lesbian,
gay, bisexual and transgender people on the map. But perhaps we should
not be surprised, since we still fight for visibility, and against
silencing, in law and policy. Yesterday the Department of Justice
announced a settlement in a discrimination case that stemmed from a
Minnesota school district's policy that silenced staff members who
might have intervened against bullying over sexual orientation or
identity. It was mere months ago that the nation allowed our military
service members to step from the ominous shadows of "Don't Ask, Don't
Tell." And today in Puerto Rico, there is a movement afoot to erase
the Commonwealth's hate crimes law that specifically protects lesbian,
gay, bisexual and transgender people even as murders of transgender
women grab headlines.
With regard to the Ravi trial, our legal system recognizes that not
all crimes draw blood. It's possible to strike deep at one's core
without a bullet or a knife blade. Whether or not the proof is
mustered to a New Jersey jury's satisfaction, justice is served by a
system that has properly acknowledged that if hate is a legal factor,
it should be recognized in all of its most virulent forms, including
those leveled at lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people for who
they are.
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
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