This legislation sends the clear message that hate crimes are serious offenses and should not be swept under the carpet. This open policy allows gay and lesbian students to know if they may be at higher risk by attending certain schools. The House passed the bill the day before by a voice vote and now it will go to President Clinton who is expected to sign it into law. Before this legislation, existing federal reporting requirements only mandated colleges and universities to report hate crimes that result in murder, rape, or aggravated assault. This was inadequate because the majority of hate crimes on campuses are not this extreme.
Most incidents come in the form of assaults, or lesser crimes.
Unfortunately, vandalism and intimidation as incidents that campus police must report to the Department of Education were not included in this bill. In 1992, Congress enacted the Campus Security Act to require colleges and universities to annually report crime statistics in an effort to measure campus crime and increase security awareness. With the passage of this section of the Higher Education Reauthorization Act, campus police will now also report incidents of hate crimes on the basis of sexual orientation, disability, religion, gender and ethnicity. The first step to solving a problem is acknowledging it exists. The Human Rights Campaign is the largest national lesbian and gay political organization, with members throughout the country.