Trends in Hate-Hate Crime Trends on Campus

NOTE: On August 14, 2008, President George W. Bush signed into law the College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2008 (H.R. 4137) which requires the U.S. Department of Education to collect data on campus hate crime incidents in categories similar to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The law—which was previously passed by the House of Representatives in February 2008, by a vote of 380-49 and by the Senate on July 31, 2008, by a vote of 83-8—punishes universities and colleges with the loss of federal funding if they do not comply with the hate crime reporting requirements. Hate crimes occurring on college campuses were voluntarily reported to the FBI by higher educational institutions prior to the bill’s passage into law, and as the above graphs show, most colleges and universities did not report such information. More disturbing is the fact that following the passage of H.R. 4137 most colleges and universities have yet to comply with the federal law.