Community unites to cope with bigotry, discrimination in Bloomington

In April of 2004 an IU student returned to his car at the Helene G. Simon Hillel Center to find it had been vandalized. The student was Jewish and the graffiti was full of anti-Semitic hate, with symbols including a swastika and the word "Jew."\nBloomington responded in full force by holding a rally and raising funds to repair the damage. No suspects were found, but a community came together to showcase their intolerance for hate.\nIn their commitment to diversity and social progress, both Bloomington and IU have taken it upon themselves to build an environment where prejudice is not only unwelcome but actively managed. Numerous organizations and community members have given IU students an outlet to direct their concerns and fears -- to help them deal with the unfortunate realities of hate. \nShane Windmeyer, national coordinator of Stop the Hate -- a national "campus bias & hate crime prevention program" for universities across the country, is co-founder of a Web project known as www.tolerance.org, for students and other community members wanting to learn methods of hate speech response. The Web site was designed to "fight hate and promote tolerance" and features daily news about groups and individuals fighting to reduce hate, as well as guidebooks and other resources for community members wanting to learn methods of protest response. \nWindmeyer said he believes in students handling volatile situations of hate and bigotry across campus communities.\n"We want students to feel like they should speak out," Windmeyer said. "Sometimes silence speaks louder than words."\nDoug Bauder, coordinator of IU's Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Student Support Services on campus, said the GLBT center is involved with helping students to steer clear of hateful incidents. Last year Bauder handled a case involving an IU student living in Collins Living-Learning Center who received a call from an unknown person. The unidentified caller uttered the words "I kill faggots" over the phone. \nBauder said this type of hateful action can be grounds for University sanction, suspension and even expulsion if the hate speech is committed on campus.\n"Even if it's not criminal but just hateful, it's against campus policy of keeping with the Code of Student Rights, Responsibilities, and Conduct," Bauder said. "(The Code) works to preserve the physical, mental, and ethical growth of students and the development of the human spirit of all the members of the IU community."\nThe IU campus features specialized incidents teams whose mission statements include quelling the presence of hatred and bigotry on campus. The Racial Incidents Team, The Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Anti-Harassment Team, The Gender Incidents Team and the Religious Bias Incidents Team all work toward two main objectives: to assist and support student victims of discrimination and to document the incident so that discrimination can be addressed with the utmost effectiveness.\nDirector and Attorney for the Bloomington Human Rights Commission Barbara McKinney holds a realist's perspective on community-wide discrimination and hate-related misconduct.\nMcKinney said a lack of hate speech attention is oftentimes effective because the perpetrator of certain acts just wants to become the topic of conversation. Depriving them of that satisfaction is often a victory in itself, McKinney said.\n"Possibly the best thing to do is ignore it," McKinney said. "It depends on what the message is."\nBauder said not all hate crime on campus or within Bloomington city limits is reported, investigated or prosecuted. He said the action of the response teams is "not meant to be punitive, just educational." He said the incident response teams leave criminally bigoted acts, for the most part, in the hands of local law enforcement agencies.\n"It's entirely victim-driven as to whether or not action will be taken, sometimes people choose not to," Bauder said. "Our purpose is to provide support and mediation, and the team deals more with non-criminal incidents, such as comments and hurtful gestures,"\nWindmeyer said he realizes the inevitability of the existence of underlying hatred in large communities, and he addresses this issue in nationwide campus speeches he gives on behalf of the Stop the Hate movement.\n"Everyone has the right to hate; no one has the right to act on that hate through threats, assault, vandalism or any other transgression," he said.\nBauder said he endeavors to make the involvement of the response teams something that can be accessible and desirable to all students who are victims of hateful acts -- giving them a clear, easy, risk-free route to take in reaction. Most response teams only accept hate incident reports during typical business hours. \n"The student can report to one of the incidents teams, and the teams will take an active response and allow the victim to determine what they want to do," Bauder said. "Mediation and educational prevention are encouraged ... There used to be a hotline on campus (for students to call at night)." \nFirst Call for Help, found in the phone book, is one route to take for a victimized student or Bloomington citizen who wishes to discuss his or her grievance at any time. First Call represents an immediate outlet for hate victims throughout the Bloomington community, maintaining service 24 hours a day and offering references to countless help and support groups around the city.\nGraduate student Meghan Miller, First Call office coordinator, said she has handled a wide variety of cases in her short time at the organization. First Call is officially affiliated with the United Way.\n"We handle everything from people who need clothing, who have disabilities, who need shelter or any other kind of need," Miller said. "A lot of times they don't know where to go to first."\nThe Safe & Civil City Program, headed by Marsha Bradford, is a program in the mayor's office that lays the groundwork for a harmonious urban environment in Bloomington. The program embodies the collaboration of numerous citywide organizations from law enforcement agencies to citizen groups.\nPersons who are interested in organizing a protest in response to hate speech or hate acts should be aware of the city's policy on protests. Information on legal protests as well as the city's stance on any hate-resolution related issue can be found at http://bloomington.in.gov/safe.\n"The City of Bloomington has long been committed to positive responses to hate incidents in this community," Bradford said. "The IU contingent is hard at work at developing creative and comprehensive responses to hate incidents on campus."\n-- Contact Staff Writer Michael Beal at mdbeal@indiana.edu.