Fighting Hate on Campus

Last Sept. 19, Humair Ahmed, a University of Pittsburgh student, was returning home from class when he was repeatedly punched and kicked by a white male who reportedly yelled, “Are you from Afghanistan?” The assailant then threatened to kill the Pakistani American student. Prosecutors charged the suspect with ethnic intimidation, threats and simple assault.

This incident demonstrates that college campuses, as microcosms of society, are by no means immune to ethnically motivated bias incidents. This was never more evident than after Sept. 11, when students of Arab American and South Asian American descent all across the country became targets of a violent backlash in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks.

Campus hate crimes remain a “hidden problem” largely because incidents are underreported by students and their universities. Students do not report ethnically motivated bias incidents for various reasons, such as fear of retaliation, discouragement or lack of knowledge regarding the reporting process itself and the belief that nothing will be done even if they do report an incident. Universities are hesitant to categorize incidents as motivated by ethnic bias.

Hate crimes on campus are a serious problem that must be addressed. U.S. Department of Education (DOE) statistics indicate that on-campus hate crimes are a growing problem in the nation as a whole, and various survey data show that in particular a significant number of Asian Pacific Americans experience ethnically motivated bias incidents on their campuses. Such incidents are explored in the 2000 audit of violence against Asian Pacific Americans called “Responding to Hate Crimes: A Special Focus on College Campuses,” produced by the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium and its affiliates, the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Asian Law Caucus and the Asian Pacific American Legal Center.

The report calls on Congress to hold hearings on universities’ failure to comply with the Campus Security Act of 1990 and the 1998 Jeanne Cleary Act, both of which require that schools participating in federal student aid programs report statistics on murders, forcible rapes and aggravated assaults that show evidence of prejudice, as defined in the Hate Crimes Statistics Act of 1990. The report also urges the DOE to be more aggressive in monitoring hate crimes on campus. A system should be created to reward schools that actively participate in the reporting process and to punish those that do not.

Students, parents, professors, alumni, and administrators can all work together to ensure that schools comply with federal hate crime reporting requirements. Together, they can develop anti-bias and other programs to address the problem. Schools can also develop working partnerships with law enforcement agnecies to prevent and respond to hate crimes on campus.

Administrators, in particular, have a special responsibility to do all that they can to address hate crimes. First and foremost, they must treat hate crimes as a serious issue. An anonymous reporting procedure, along with a written student code against ethnically motivated harassment, must be easily accessible to all students.

Administrators should also invest in classes that teach about different cultures, debunk stereotypes and provide an inclusive look at contributors of all peoples to history, literature, science and our economy. Additionally, they should establish an anti-hate crime campaign on their campus to educate their students and faculty on this issue.

Students can also do their part to combat campus hate crimes by developing good working relationships with key administrators before hate crimes occur so that communication is possible during the stressful period that may follow a bias incident. Students can also join together to build coalitions across campus to monitor incidents, and they can advocate for stronger hate crime legislation and effective university procedures.

Parents and alumni can encourage schools to make hate crimes reporting a priority by asking questions and reporting campuses that are not in compliance with federal regulations to the appropriate regional office of the DOE’s Office of Postsecondary Education. We must work together as a community to ensure that hate crimes no longer occur on our college campuses.

Karen K. Narasaki is President and Executive Director of the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium, located in Washington, D.C.