Hate Report to return
Last report was in 1999
Published Oct. 19, 2007
The Hate Report, a means of gathering statistical data about hate crimes at MU, will be re-implemented after an eight-year hiatus. Missouri Students Association Senate Speaker Jonathan Mays said he plans to start implementing the report as soon as possible.
Mays co-authored a bill last October that called for the executive branch of MSA to implement a Bias Incident Reporting System, which would be a Web site on which students could report incidents of hate crimes.
He called it "a forum through which people can report incidents of bias."
Kelley Robinson, former MSA executive assistant for Diversity Affairs and co-author of the bill, said a means such as the Hate Report is important especially in a small town like Columbia where there is not as much diversity as elsewhere.
"Marginalized students feel that they're not represented," she said.
The MU Campus Climate Study, which was completed in 2005, states that 2.4 percent of its participants reported being victims of hate crimes at MU.
According to the Campus Crime and Safety Report, there have been no hate crimes reported to the MU Police Department since 2004, but a car was vandalized in AV-14 parking lot this month, and MU police are considering the incident a hate crime.
Mays said the results of the report will be distributed to media and the police and will be used to spread awareness of issues of hate crimes in Columbia.
"Awareness is a first step," he said.
He said if there are any trends in the reports, MSA could campaign to the federal government to get a grant to help solve the problem.
Mays and Robinson's bill, which was passed last year in MSA Senate, states that then-student Marcia Chatelain, Women's Center adviser Martha Pickens and members of the Triangle Coalition implemented the Hate Report in 1996. It states that the report was not continued after Chatelain graduated in 1999.
Mays said he will soon meet with interested parties, including Robinson, MSA President Rachel Anderson and Multicultural Center Director Pablo Mendoza, to discuss the implementation of the plan.
Mays said he is in communication with Equity Office Manager Noel English and discussing including the report on the Equity Office Web site.
MSA had previously discussed including the Hate Report on a Web site devoted to finding academic bias in the classroom, but Mays said Student Success Director Michael Prewitt said the two issues are too dissimilar.
Robinson said she submitted a sample survey to Anderson over the summer. Robinson said she is no longer part of MSA and will play an advisory role in the implementation of the plan.
"I'm just kind of helping them get the spirit of the plan," she said.
Anderson said she did not receive the report from Robinson over the summer, but Mays said he received a copy of Robinson's work this week.
The Web site on which reports can be filed will ask for statistical information about the victim and offender, the incident and for any other details.
It will also have an optional spot for the participant to include his or her contact information.
"I'm going to make this happen," Mays said. "It can't wait."
