Dangerous Climates

• Author: Griff Tester,Nella Van Dyke
• Published date: 01 August 2014
• Date: 01 August 2014
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/1043986214536666
• Subject Matter: Articles

Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice

2014, Vol. 30(3) 290 –309

© 2014 SAGE Publications

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DOI: 10.1177/1043986214536666

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Article

Dangerous Climates:

Factors Associated

With Variation in Racist

Hate Crimes on College

Campuses

Nella Van Dyke1 and Griff Tester2

Abstract

Although hundreds of American college students are the victims of bias-motivated

verbal and physical assaults every year, little research explores whether there is a

systematic pattern to the hate crimes that occur on college campuses. In this article,

we study why some campuses experience more racist hate crimes than do others.

We explore how campus demographics, tuition increases, and the presence of

fraternities influence reported hate crime incidence. Through a statistical analysis

of the hate crimes reported to the FBI by 349 colleges, we find that ethnic-/racial-

bias hate crimes are more likely to be reported on predominantly White college

campuses and those that have a large Greek population. We contribute to theory

on hate crime by illustrating some of the social characteristics that make hate crime

more likely in certain geographic areas than others.

Keywords

hate crime, racial threat, fraternities, ethnic conflict, racism

Every year, hundreds of American college students are the victims of bias-motivated

verbal and physical assaults. The Director of the Prejudice Institute in Baltimore esti-

mates that nearly 1 million students are the victims of racially motivated harassment

each year, including one quarter of the minority student population (Willoughby,

1University of California, Merced, USA

2Georgia State University, Atlanta, USA

Corresponding Author:

Nella Van Dyke, University of California, 5200 North Lake Road, Merced, CA 95343, USA.

E-mail: nvandyke@ucmerced.edu

536666CCJXXX10.1177/1043986214536666Journal of Contemporary Criminal JusticeVan Dyke and Tester

research-article2014

Van Dyke and Tester 291

2004). In contrast to the race-blind image provided by some social commentators, U.S.

colleges and universities are often racialized settings that present barriers and hostility

to minority students (Feagin, Hernan, & Imani, 1996). The harm to individuals extends

beyond the single incident, negatively affecting minority students’ social and aca-

demic experiences and sometimes leading to their exit or transfer (d’Augelli &

Hershberger, 1993; Feagin et al. 1996; Lewis, Chesler, & Forman, 2001; Solorzano,

Ceja, & Yosso, 2000). As colleges and universities strive to increase their diversity and

improve minority student retention, a campus climate marked by racial discrimination

and hostility will work against their efforts. Hate crimes are especially likely to create

a hostile campus climate for minorities because victims are selected merely because of

their perceived membership in a racial or ethnic group (Berk, 1990; Craig, 2001;

Iganski, 2001; Perry, 2001). Hate crimes affect entire communities, terrorizing every-

one who belongs to the group (Craig, 2001; Ehrlich, Larcom, & Purvis, 1994; Iganski,

2001). However, little research explores whether there is a systematic pattern to the

hate crimes that occur on college campuses.

Stotzer and Hossellman (2012) present one of the few studies of campus hate crime.

They find that campuses with fewer Black and Latino students are more likely to

report racist hate crimes, whereas the number of minority faculty on campus is not

associated with the incidence of hate crimes. We extend their research by bringing in

the sociological literature on the relationship between characteristics of the social

environment and hate crime, focusing on campus demographics, tuition increases, and

the strength of the campus’ Greek system. We conduct an analysis of the social char-

acteristics of college campuses that reported more ethnic or racial-bias-motivated

crimes in 2002. We use data from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports, coupled with

college characteristic data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES).

This study represents one of the first explorations of the factors associated with varia-

tion in college campus hate crime reports, and in general, a rare analysis of how social

context influences the reported incidence of hate crimes.

Ethnic Conflict and Hate Crime on Campus

Although 10% of the hate crimes reported nationally occur on college campuses (FBI,

Uniform Crime Reports, 2002), very little research examines the hate crimes that

occur in these locations. Recent work by Stotzer and Hossellman (2012) is one notable

exception. They find that although the number of minority faculty on campus is not

associated with hate crime reporting, campuses with fewer Black and Latino students

were more likely to report racist hate crimes. This finding is consistent with several

theories that provide explanations for geographic variation in hate crime and racial

conflict.

Ethnic competition theory suggests that racial violence erupts over competition for

scarce resources, either economic or political (Blalock, 1967; Hawley, 1950; Olzak,

1990, 1992; Soule, 1992). Perceptions of competition may result from changes in the

available resource base or from changes in the size of minority populations. Declining

resource pools, such as available jobs, may inspire increased competition as different