Commemorating Our Commitment to Fighting Hate-Driven Violence

Six years ago this week, President Obama signed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, expanding the federal definition of hate crimes, enhancing the legal toolkit available to prosecutors and increasing the ability of federal law enforcement to support our state and local partners.  This law signaled to the world an enduring commitment to the most fundamental of American values, and it voiced an unwavering belief in the strength of our diversity.             

The anniversary of the Shepard-Byrd Act presents an opportunity to evaluate our progress and renew our dedication to eradicating hate-driven violence.  As head of the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice, I have the privilege of working alongside a team of dedicated colleagues to enforce the law in pursuit of equal justice and equal opportunity for all Americans.  The Shepard-Byrd Act strengthened our capacity to advance that mission.  It added new federal protections against crimes based on gender, disability, gender identity or sexual orientation.  And it removed unnecessary jurisdictional obstacles that interfered with our prosecution of racially and religiously-motivated violence.

Working with our U.S. Attorney colleagues across the country, during the past seven years, we’ve charged 236 defendants with hate crimes.  These cases involve horrifying details, but they help highlight the impact of this monumental law.  We recently completed a Mississippi case, where 10 people conspired to harass and assault African Americans in the Jackson area, disparagingly calling it “Jafrica.”  One night, their terror culminated in the death of an African-American man, who several of the individuals assaulted and then ran over in a pickup truck as they yelled “White Power.”  Our legal team won convictions against each of the 10 defendants.  Just last month, in a Texas case, two men pleaded guilty to hate crime offenses in their assault on a gay, African-American man.  Using racial and homophobic slurs, the defendants viciously punched, kicked and sodomized the man before pouring bleach over his face and eyes.  And we’ve also paid special attention to the increase in crimes targeting Arab, Muslim, Sikh and South Asian victims since 9/11.  For example, in 2011, in one of our first prosecutions following the passage of the act, a former Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employee in Minnesota pleaded guilty to hate crime charges for assaulting an elderly Somali man because he believed he was Muslim and an African immigrant.

In addition to our criminal prosecutions, we’re also engaging directly with local communities.  The Department of Justice has organized a series of regional trainings – in Mississippi and California earlier this year, in Oregon this week, and in Kansas and Florida next month – and we are grateful to Matthew Shepard’s parents for participating in these sessions.  We aim to train local and federal law enforcement in how to recognize, investigate and prove hate crimes; to educate communities and engage them in the process of ensuring public safety; and to encourage better hate crime reporting and data collection.  When we bring together a diverse group of stakeholders – from different professions, backgrounds and walks of life – we see law enforcement and community leaders commit to work together to prevent and respond more effectively to hate-motivated violence.

Nearly two decades after two men died from the most barbaric and hateful of crimes – Matthew Shepard brutalized, then left to die on a fence, and James Byrd Jr. chained to a truck before being dragged to his death for miles – this landmark law reminds us of their legacies and the urgent work ahead.  It teaches us that our legal system must protect all people – regardless of what they look like, where they worship, whom they love and whether they have a disability – from hateful violence.  And it reminds us that so long as hate exists in America, we cannot fulfill the promise of our founding ideals.

At a White House ceremony after he signed the law six years ago, President Obama told the nation that while we may struggle to comprehend the thoughts of those who commit such heinous and hateful crimes, “we sense where such cruelty begins: the moment we fail to see in another our common humanity – the very moment when we fail to recognize in a person the same fears and hopes, the same passions and imperfections, the same dreams that we all share.”  Today, on this anniversary, let us search for that common humanity.  Let us discover those passions and dreams that bring us together.  And let us find the desire we share for a more perfect, more free and more just America.