Introduction

Racial tension and violent behavior among students are prevalent in schools today. Despite the fact that many hate-motivated crimes go unreported the number of reported incidents is up. When students in Informal surveys nationwide acknowledge that fighting and violence in school is one of their major concerns, we know that we have a national problem Students and faculty want safe places in which to teach and learn, But often racial tension results in fights, name-calling, graffiti and other bias-related incidents. These acts of hatred often represent a much deeper-rooted expression of hostility against a person or property because of race, religion, nationality gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation than we would like to admit. Schools and other institutions need to learn to recognize and address bias-related incidents. Educators must encourage students to speak up when they see or experience something hateful and teachers and students must learn to do something about the problem.

Hate-motivated incidents are defined as an expression of hostility against a person or property because of the victim's race, religion, disability, gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation.(However, hate-motivated incidents include those actions that are motivated by bias, but do not meet the necessary elements required to prove a crime. This may include such behavior as non-threatening name-calling, using racial slurs or disseminating racist leaflets. Protected classifications vary from state to state.

Hatecrimes are defined under specific penal code sections as an act or an attempted act by any person against the person or property of another individual or group which in any way constitutes an expression of hostility toward the victim because of his or her race, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, gender or ethnicity. (This includes, but is not limited to, threatening phone calls, hate mail, physical assaults, vandalism, cross burning, destruction of religious symbols and fire bombings. Protected classifications vary from state to state.)