Monday, January 25, 1999
USAC kicks off Week of Remembrance campaign
TOLERANCE: Organizers hope greater awareness will prevent hate
crimes
By Barbara Ortutay
Daily Bruin Staff
The Undergraduate Students Association Council (USAC) is
launching "A Week of Remembrance" today to commemorate victims of
hate crimes and urge students to participate in preventing
them.
Raising awareness about the prevalence of hate crimes is the
focus of the week’s programs, according to co-organizer Tram Linh
Ho, USAC financial supports commissioner.
"Information and awareness is central to the safety and security
of an individual," said USAC administrative representative Berky
Nelson. "Ignorance and indifference is dangerous; Hitler was a
laughingstock before his rise to power."
Among the scheduled speakers is Tom Lydon, a former neo-nazi
leader, who now acts as an informant for government agencies and
speaks out against hate.
"He’ll provide information people wouldn’t even imagine, like
how effective recruiters are in getting people to join this
movement," said Nelson, who is also a sensitivity trainer for the
Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles.
"All it takes is for people to feel alienated and that the world
is against them," he added.
In addition to Lydon, Mexican human rights activist Rosario
Ibarra de Piedra will also speak about hate crimes, focusing mainly
on international human rights issues.
Events for the rest of the week will also include a candlelight
vigil for Thien Minh Ly, a former UCLA student and chair of the
Vietnamese Student Union who was murdered by an alleged
neo-nazi.
Although violent murders such as Ly’s or Matthew Shepard’s in
Wyoming often stir a nation-wide uproar, many hate crimes occur in
more subtle ways. Nelson said hate crimes most often occur at UCLA
in the form of graffiti, defaced property and flyers targeting
minority groups.
The point where free speech crosses the line and becomes a hate
crime is not always clear, according to Nelson.
USAC general representative Mike de la Rocha said a general
definition of a hate crime is "being a victim because of who you
are, whether it is race, religion, sexual orientation or
nationality."
UCLA currently has no specific policy regarding hate crimes. The
university’s "fighting words policy," however, prohibits the use of
"personally abusive epithets" that may provoke violence, according
to the university student conduct policy.
USAC’s focus on hate crimes are the result of the "loss of
diversity at UCLA," said de la Rocha, which, he said, may result in
an increase of intolerance on campus.
De la Rocha said USAC is looking to urge the UC administration
to create a UC-wide hate crimes policy.
"Currently, the only mechanism for reporting hate crimes is UCPD
and a lot of people don’t report them to the police, either because
they don’t know where to go or because they are afraid," he
said.
Each year, only a handful of hate crimes are reported to the
university police, according to UCPD statistics.
At its Tuesday meeting, USAC plans to consider voting on a
resolution calling for a UC-wide hate crimes policy.
Throughout the week, organizers of the event will also circulate
petitions urging Congress to vote in favor of the Hate Crimes
Prevention Act, which was proposed by President Clinton a year
ago.
If passed, this bill would expand the definition of a hate crime
to include crimes based on one’s gender, disability or sexual
orientation.
Federal laws already punish hate crimes against a person’s race,
ethnicity, nationality and religion.
Laws geared toward the punishment of hate crimes, however, may
be too late for some victims and is not the main focus of USAC’s
campaign, according to de la Rocha.
"We want to educate people about this issue," de la Rocha
said.
"Just the fact that so many student organizations are involved
in this campaign shows its importance," said Ho.
Ho and de la Rocha are the organizers of the campaign, which is
co-sponsored by 12 student advocacy groups.
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