Grow up people, you are NOT helping the cause
As Hate-Crime Concerns Rise, So Does the Threat of Hoaxes
Campuses often provide conditions that can cultivate false reports of racist or anti-gay acts, experts say.
By Nora Zamichow and Stuart Silverstein
Times Staff Writers
April 20, 2004
Colleges across the nation have become the stage for hate crime hoaxes that thrust the purported victim into the limelight and twist campuses into turmoil.
At San Francisco State, two black students reported racial epithets scrawled in their dorms. At Northwestern University, a freshman told police that someone grabbed him from behind, held a knife to his neck and uttered an anti-Latino slur. At the College of New Jersey, the treasurer of a gay organization said someone sent threats on his life.
In each instance, police said, the alleged victims turned out to be the perpetrators.
Although such incidents occur everywhere, experts say college campuses can provide the perfect petri dish for cultivating a hoax: a community capable of rallying to correct a perceived injustice.
"A person who is a victim of a hate crime can probably expect to get almost universal sympathy on a college campus. Out in the world at large, that's not necessarily true," said Mark Potok, who has researched hate crime for the Southern Poverty Law Center. "But on a college campus, you are very likely to get the support of the administration, the faculty and virtually all the students. It tends to put you in the limelight very quickly."
