Legislation would address rising hate crimes though increased funding and reporting mechanisms
New York, NY, April 22, 2021. ADL (the Anti-Defamation League) praised the U.S. Senate’s bipartisan passage of the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act as well as the Khalid Jabara and Heather Heyer National Opposition to Hate, Assault, and Threats to Equality Act (Jabara-Heyer NO HATE Act), both of which ADL has supported extensively.
The COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act would address the rise in hate crimes and violence targeted at Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) by assigning a point person at the Department of Justice (DOJ) to expedite the review of COVID-19-related hate crimes, providing support for state and local law enforcement agencies to respond to these hate crimes, and coordinating with local and federal partners to mitigate racially discriminatory language used to describe the pandemic.
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Oct. 6, 1998, Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old gay student at the University of Wyoming, was robbed and beaten in the parking lot of a Laramie, Wyo., bar. His two anti-gay assailants then took him to a remote spot outside town where he was stripped naked, tied to a wooden fence, tortured and left to die. Shepard was found by two mountain bikers who delivered him to a hospital in Fort Collins, Colo., where he died six days later. Two men, Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney, were convicted of murder â Henderson also was convicted of kidnapping â and sentenced to life in prison.
Shepardâs murder rocked the nation and prompted calls for extending hate crime laws to cover violence based on an individualâs sexual orientation. And, indeed, the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act â aka Hate Crimes Act of 2009 â bears Shepardâs name and the name of another hate crime victim, a Black man who was murdered by a group of Texas white su
Apr 16th, 2021 4 min read
COMMENTARY BY
Legal Fellow, Meese Center
Sarah Parshall Perry is a legal fellow for the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation. U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) speaks during a press conference on the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act at the U.S. Capitol on April 13, 2021 in Washington, D.C. Stefani Reynolds / Getty Images
Key Takeaways
Like much of the legislation arising in the 117th Congress, the bill plays hide the ball with its real purpose: sexual identitarianism.
S.937 duplicates hate crime laws and enforcement efforts already on the books.