President
Clinton Urges Passage of Federal Hate Crimes Bill,
Announces
Partnership to Teach Tolerance in Middle Schools,
and
Signs Directive to Increase Hate Crimes Reporting
Washington – President Clinton will applaud public
and private efforts to teach children about tolerance, and will urge Congress
to pass quickly the pending federal hate crimes legislation. This
legislation strengthens the existing federal hate crimes law by (1) extending
the situations where prosecutions can be brought for violent crimes motivated
by bias based on race, color, religion, or national origin; and (2) expanding
the federal hate crimes statute to protect against hate crimes based on
sexual orientation, gender, or disability. The President will also
announce a new public-private partnership which will focus attention on
issues of hate, tolerance, and diversity in middle-grade schools.
Finally, the President will call on the Departments of Justice and Education
to include hate crimes in their annual report card on school safety and
to report on hate crimes and bias on college campuses. Urging Passage of Expanded
Federal Hate Crimes Law. The President will urge Congress to pass
the bipartisan Hate crimes Prevention Act of 1999,
which expands a prinicipal federal hate crimes statute.
The current statute prohibits acts of violence that are based on a person’s
race, color, religion, or national origin and that are intended to interfere
with certain specified federally protected activities. The proposed
legislation would extend the situations where prosecutions could be brought
by making these acts of violence illegal even if they did not interfere
with federally protected activities. In addition, the legislation
would authorize the department of Justice to prosecute individiuals who
commit violent crimes against others because of the victim’s sexual orientation,
gender, or disability. Current federal law does not cover these cases. Announcing Public-Private Partnership
to Create a Middle-School Program about Tolerance. The President
announced a public-private partnership that will develop a program for
middle-school students to teach tolerance in the classroom and in their
daily lives. The members of the partnership are AT&T,
Court TV, the National
Middle School Association, the Anti-Defamation League, and Cable in the
Classroom. They will be assisted by the Departments of Justice and
Education. This effort is supported by the NAACP, the Leadership
Conference for Civil Rights, the National Council of La Raza, the National
Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium, the National Association of Protection
and Advocacy Systems, the National Education Association, and the National
School Boards Association. The Partnership also expects support from
other organizations that deal with these issues. Recognizing that
tolerance cannot be taught in a single day and that raising awareness of
diversity should be integrated into students’ daily lives,
this public-private partnership – entitled “Dealing with Our differences”
- will provide an opportunity for middle-school students to learn about
the harmful impact of intolerance and will highlight positive ways that
young adolescents are dealing with diversity issues. The Partnership
will develop in-school lessons and activities supported with cable-TV programming,
videos and websites, a nationally-televised forum on diversity and tolerance
at the end of October; and post-show lessons and activities. Directing the Education and Justice Departments
to Collect Date About Hate Crimes in Schools and Colleges. In order
to better understand the problem of hate crimes and intolerance among young
people, the President will call on the departments of Justice and Education
to include in their annual report card on school safety a new section on
hate crimes among young people, both at and away from school. In
addition, the President will direct the department of Justice, to collect
data on hate crime and bias on college campuses for periodic publication.
(Courtesy of the Office of the President)