Clinton Outlines Campus Hate Crime Initiative

The unfolding conflict in Kosovo and the murder of a gay Wyoming college student last year have prompted President Bill Clinton to propose more reporting of hate crimes on college campuses.
The president called it a "cruel irony" that hate crimes occur at colleges and universities, where students should gain exposure to broader views and ideas. Yet, he says, such crimes persist on campuses and the federal government has little information about it.
For this initiative, Clinton directed the U.S. Education Department and Justice Department to provide more detailed collection of such information, through regular national reports and other means.
"I'm asking the Department of Education to collect important data for the first time on hate crimes and bias on college campuses," he says. "We have significant hate crime problems there, and we need to shine the light on that."
Some changes in hate crime reporting already are underway based on last year's Higher Education Act reauthorization bill. In that legislation, Congress urged colleges to collect hate crime data in categories beyond murder and rape — two areas where colleges already were required to identify those crimes specifically linked to bias.
However, few national researchers track campus crime generally, regardless of whether the incident is motivated by hate. Colleges and universities must compile and distribute annual crime statistics to their students, but to date, the federal government has never collected or assembled any of this data. 
"Students have been deliberately left in the dark" about various types of campus crime, says S. Daniel Carter, vice president of Security on Campus, a Pennsylvania-based group.
However, last year's HEA reauthorization bill required the Education Department to compile — for the first time — national totals on campus crime.
One of the few national reports on hate crimes is an annual study from the Anti-Defamation League, but that report covers only acts of anti-Semitism.
In his announcement, Clinton cited the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, saying the U.S. cannot stand as a "force for good abroad unless we are good at home."
His announcement also came on the heels of a sentencing in the murder last year of Matthew Shepard, a gay University of Wyoming student. One defendant will receive two consecutive life terms in prison, while another defendant is awaiting trial.
Clinton also called for development of a public/private partnership to work with middle school students to teach tolerance. In another element of the president's initiative, the Education Department will begin to include hate crime information in its annual school safety report cards.
The president also urged Congress to pass a stronger federal hate crime law that extends coverage to gay Americans and the disabled. This new law would increase the number of situations where prosecutors may invoke hate crime penalties.
The nation reports about 8,000 hate crimes a year, or nearly one per hour, Clinton says.