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BEATING BIAS State legislator, Ball State students share thoughts on hate crime legislation
Rohith Rao Reporter
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Editor’s note: Dominic Bordenaro has previously written for The Daily News. In her junior year of high school, she had rocks thrown at her at a bus stop by some students from her high school. “The kids claimed it was because I was ugly,” said Brooklyn Arizmendi, president of Spectrum — the on-campus LGBTQresource organization — recalling the incident. “But I realized it was because I was brown. It was a very racist assault.” But when she took the incident — which she said could have been prosecuted
as a hate crime — to the person who handled disciplinary action at the Madison Consolidated High School in Madison, Indiana, Arizmendi said she was told “to wait until it happens again.” “I realize today that it was because those kids were extremely ignorant and racist,” she said. On April 3, Gov. Eric Holcomb signed Senate Bill 198 (SB 198) into law, aiming to protect Hoosiers against hate crimes. But Arizmendi, like some state legislators and Ball State students, doesn’t fully support the legislation. Indiana’s bias crimes reporting statute mentions color, creed, disability, national origin, race, religion and sexual orientation,
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but doesn’t explicitly cover age, sex or gender identity. However, the newly-signed legislation says bias is also considered “due to the victim’s or the group’s real or perceived characteristic, trait, belief, practice, association or other attribute the court chooses to consider.” Arizmendi said all protections for marginalized groups are important, and it was necessary to be more specific on who is protected. “I think that when they removed language protections for the majority of the LGBTQ+ community, it then becomes useless to us,” she said. “It doesn’t serve the original purpose, and it’s very, very passive.”
4See LEGISLATION,04
HATE CRIME LAWS AND DATA COLLECTION ACROSS AMERICA
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04.11.2019
Has hate crime laws and requires data collection on hate crimes Has hate crime laws and does not require data collection on hate crimes Does not have hate crime laws and requires data collection on hate crimes Does not have hate crime laws and does not require data collection on hate crimes
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Source: United States Department of Justice.
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