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Preschools, elementary schools and high schools are not being spared from a dramatic rise in hate crimes that has swept across the country, according to a just-published FBI report.
As many as one in 10 hate crimes in the U.S. take place at schools — from kindergarten through college, the report said. It’s a first-of-its-kind report by the FBI and U.S. Department of Justice looking at data from 2018 through 2022.
66 PERCENT
Almost two-thirds of the reported hate crimes took place in preschools, elementary schools and high schools, according to the FBI data.
This alarming trend underscores the pressing challenge of ensuring safety and inclusivity in schools, where students should ideally be focused on learning rather than facing bias-motivated threats.
School and college campuses were the third most common site of reported hate crimes between 2018 and 2022. Only homes (27 percent), highways, roads or alleys (16 percent) saw more hate crime offenses.
The truly unfortunate part is that the report does NOT include any data resulting from school hate crimes in 2023, meaning all hate-related school behavior resulting from the October 7 Hamas attacks are obviously not included. Clearly, 2023 will see another rise in reported hate crimes in schools and campuses amid the ongoing war.
The report found the most common hate crime offense was intimidation, followed by vandalism and assault. According to the new report, the most frequent type of reported hate crime in schools was intimidation, which the federal government defines as unlawfully causing another individual to fear bodily harm through the use of threatening words or other actions.
It is nearly as common as vandalism or destruction of property, which can include graffiti using symbols or words of hate. The third-most common offense was simple assault, which is a physical attack without a weapon and in which the victim does not suffer severe injury.
12.6 PERCENT
The most common hate crimes against groups were anti-Black crimes (12.6 percent), followed by anti-Jewish crimes (5.6 percent) and anti-Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Transgender crimes (2.6 percent). Anti-Muslim hate crimes were 0.5 percent of the total.
During the five-year period covered in the report, the most common demographic groups victimized by reported hate crimes at school were African Americans and black people.
The report found that the number of reported hate crimes at schools — from preschool through university — has risen steadily since 2020, when officials recorded 500 hate crimes at school. In 2021, the number of school-based offenses rose to 896 before hitting a high of more than 1,300 in 2022.
Those increases track with what FBI officials have described as a worrisome rise in hate crimes overall, with the latest data showing a record 11,643 incidents in 2022, surpassing the previous record of almost 11,000 incidents in 2021.
The report is the first of its kind issued by the FBI, and officials say it is not clear yet whether they will issue additional reports on school-based hate crimes in the future.
10 PERCENT
Incidents at schools accounted for 10 percent of the nation’s hate crime offenses reported in 2019, then plummeted to roughly 4 percent in 2020, which the FBI attributed to a shift to online learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, 2022 saw a spike back to pre-pandemic levels. This shift suggests that the resumption of traditional schooling may have inadvertently created spaces where hate crimes could proliferate.
“The goal is to draw attention to the data and to the occurrences of hate crimes at schools, giving possibly others the opportunity to respond,” an FBI official told reporters upon the report’s release, on the condition of anonymity under ground rules established by the bureau.
“[This is] not a situation here where the bureau is looking to take immediate action on this,” the official added. “But by providing the information, we think that it enables our law enforcement partners to do so.”
The FBI report also found that hate crimes in schools were more frequent in October, November and December, with nearly a third of school-based hate crimes taking place during those months.
30 PERCENT
Overall, the report said that more than 30 percent of children who were victims of hate crimes over the five-year period were victimized at school. Almost 36 percent of juvenile hate crime offenders committed the crimes in school.
As schools supposedly remain a cornerstone for shaping young minds and societal values, the rise in hate crimes within these schools poses a significant threat to the foundational principles of equity and inclusion.
The data presented by the FBI not only sheds light on the extent of the problem but also emphasizes the collective responsibility to ensure that schools are safe spaces where all students can thrive, free from the fear of hate-motivated violence.
The implications of these findings extend beyond the immediate impact on victims and perpetrators. They signal a broader societal challenge that demands concerted efforts from educators, policymakers and community leaders to address the root causes of hate and bias in schools.
The FBI’s report serves as a crucial call to action, urging local law enforcement and school officials to utilize this data to develop strategies that can mitigate, if not prevent, future hate crimes in educational environments — as if.
This column is by Ritchie Lucas, Founder/CEO of the non-profit The Student Success Project. He can be reached by email at ritchie@studentsuccessproject.org and on Facebook as The Student Success Project.
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