An increase in verbal and physical attacks on Asian Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic has helped push forward legislation designed to fix a loophole in Minnesota’s hate crime law.
Updating the way Minnesota responds to hate crimes has been a goal of a community coalition and DFL lawmakers for three years. Doing so this session could be another result of the trifecta that emerged from the 2022 election.
[image_caption]State Rep. Frank Hornstein[/image_caption]
“As an Asian-American woman, this is also personal,” Vang said. “During the pandemic, with the rhetoric being used to blame Asian Americans for the coronavirus, not just me but the Asian American community felt unsafe for the first time in a long time.”
“During the pandemic we’ve seen online and offline videos of violence and harassment and abuse against Asian Americans. The community is asking me what can I do. But the state right now doesn’t have the infrastructure to report what is actually happening on the ground to our communities.”
That is the new initiative in House File 181. Separate from the reporting of hate crimes to the police — reports that are collected and reported annually by the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension — the bill sets up a system to report incidents that fall short of criminal acts or are not reported because the victim chooses not to. People could report events to community groups that might be more trusted. And those reports could be gathered to provide a fuller idea of what is happening on the ground.
[image_caption]Commissioner Rebecca Lucero[/image_caption]
“Using the data collected can help you and community groups inform next steps — education, outreach or some other decisions you decide to make,” Lucero told House members last month. Neither the human rights law or the hate crimes provisions apply, for example, to slurs shouted at a person because of their race, she said.
How often does it happen? Lucero said reports are anecdotal and some incidents aren’t reported to anyone.
“But for many incidents that occur that may not be criminal, there is no coordinated, consistent tracking, reporting, analysis and recommendations for next steps.” Lucero said. “Even if it is a crime, the police are not getting called, there will not be an investigation or a citation, so it will never be documented or tracked. No one will ever know about it except that person and community members who feel the residual effect.
Under the Vang bill, Lucero’s department would be charged with soliciting information from school districts, charter schools, community organizations and individuals and compile them into an annual report. A House staff summary of the bill is here.
While reporting to organizations that advocate for Asian American, Black, Jewish or Muslim groups wouldn’t necessarily lead to a crime report, it would help capture the actual prevalence of incidents, Beth Gendler, executive director of Jewish Community Action, told the committee. She is part of a coalition that has been working to update the bias laws. Police agencies and advocates estimate that two-thirds of crimes covered under bias statutes are never reported to police.
Reported incidents rise
Hnuchee Vang, director of policy and advocacy for the Coalition of Asian American Leaders, said the Hmong community experienced an increase in slurs and attacks during the COVID-19 pandemic. She described one person receiving a note on their home with a racial slur and telling them to take their virus back to China.
She said incidents are underestimated “because they fear retaliation or worry about rocking the boat if they speak up.”
The most-recent state crime report by the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension came out last August and covered 2021. It found that crimes covered by the hate crimes law rose with 238 reported incidents. Those incidents involved 271 victims and 181 offenders. The total reported in 2019 was 146
Of those 238 incidents in 2021, 40.3% were motivated by anti-Black or African American bias, the BCA reported, 10.5% were anti-gay, 8.8 percent were anti-white and 8.4% were anti-Jewish. The 16 reported incidents aimed at Asian Americans were 7% of the total. In 2019, there was one incident motivated by bias against Asian Americans.
The other sections of the bill take on segments of the current law that have been considered vague or incomplete. Currently, a list of criminal offenses can be subject to enhanced penalties if they can be proven to be motivated by hate against particular groups. Covered now are crimes motivated due to a person’s actual or perceived race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age, disability or national origin. Police agencies collect information on those incidents for the BCA and the Peace Officer Standards and Training Board, often referred to as the POST Board, oversees training to help police officers recognize crimes motivated by bias.
HF 181 expands the categories of crimes motivated by bias to include gender, gender identity or gender expression as well as crimes against people who associate with someone in a protected group.
The bill also attempts to close a loophole in how the law treats property crimes meant to intimidate or harm protected individuals or groups. In 2019, someone spray-painted threatening and antisemitic messages on a south Minneapolis public school just five blocks from Hornstein’s home. Included was a swastika and a slur against Jews. But because the vandalism wasn’t to property owned by someone covered by the hate crimes law, it is unclear if the law applies. That is, graffiti on a synagogue would fall under the law, but the same messages on a building across the street might not. And public buildings, such as the Minneapolis school where the antisemitic message appeared, also might not be covered.
The bill adds language that vandalism “motivated in whole or in part by an intent to intimidate or harm any individual or group of individuals” is now subject to enhanced penalties. That is meant to cover not only the school vandalism in 2019 but vandalism on property that is rented or used by a targeted person or group but not owned by them.
Data collection vs. speech and association
There were concerns raised about the bill from both the political left and political right. Rep. Walter Hudson, R-Albertville, said he opposed the new reporting mechanism for incidents that aren’t crimes.
[image_caption]State Rep. Walter Hudson[/image_caption]
Hudson said someone could post on social media a Bible verse that defined marriage as being between one man and one woman or opposed certain “sexual proclivities.” Would that be an incident reportable under the bill? he asked.
Lucero said the section Hudson was citing is not about crimes and carries no penalties or investigation. The current human rights law does allow reporting to her office of allegations of discrimination and bias under that law. They are investigated and can lead to civil penalties.
The new reporting section is separate from that and leads to data collection about the prevalence of bias incidents.
“Section 1 is about ‘what’s going on here?’” she said. “Section 1 is not about crimes.”
The committee also received a letter from the ACLU of Minnesota that raised questions similar to those raised by Hudson.
“We are also cognizant of the fact that bias, bias-motivated violence, and individual and community identities may be perceived as associations with certain groups,” wrote ACLU policy director Julia Decker. “However, the expansive provisions in HF181 introduce the prospect that speech and/or associations unrelated to a particular action may be inappropriately used to infer biased motivation. While an individual’s words or associations may be repugnant to some, if they are not directly connected to a specific action, using them to impose criminal penalties does raise constitutional concerns.”
In an interview, Vang said she thinks both criticisms are not on point because the bill doesn’t expand the current hate crimes law and contains no new crimes or criminal penalties. The criticisms seem aimed at the community reporting section of the bill that does not include any criminal sanctions.
She said she is working with Lucero and others to fine tune the bill, which remained in the Public Safety Committee. Its next stop will be the House Judiciary and Civil Law Committee.
Correction: This story was updated to correct the name of ACLU policy director Julia Decker. An earlier version of the story gave her first name as Julie.
There is also an anti-mental illness bias in our community, and I have asked Minnesota Senate Majority Leader Kari Dziedzic to address it.
I have time and again been beaten and subjected to reputation ending gossip by intemperate and hostile people with a disregard for me because they have found out that I experience depression and anxiety — which over over 30% of college students experience (https://www.mayoclinichealthsystem.org/hometown-health/speaking-of-health/college-students-and-depression).
I was brutally beaten at the University of Minnesota several times a month during two academic years until Hennepin County District Judge Sean Rice executed a restraining order on my behalf. University of Minnesota Captain Francis Gernhandt and his associate LT Metcalf, a woman, repeatedly told me to stop calling UMPD because I was “mentally ill and brought on [my] own problems.” Hardly. I didn’t know the two students who engaged in a sociopathic program of terrorizing me on campus several times a month for two years. I later learned that they learned of my diagnoses from a University of Minnesota medical student who knew of my situation. One of the men was the medical student’s brother.
The man would call his law school student sister, “Dogface,” exhibiting a routinely boorish and hostile outlook on others. He refused to honor the order for restraint and sat down next to me at a Chinese restaurant formerly on campus after the order was received. I approached him and told him that I would not embarass him in front of his girlfriend, both being Vietnamese American students. I forgave him for the terrorism and told him that I understood that he may not be feeling like the most important person because he was the youngest in his family, in the shadows of two spectacular scholars, and that growing up in a three or four generation extended family might be confusing and upsetting. I spoke in low tones with my hand on his shoulder and while I was kneelnig at his left side.
My grades deteriorated, and I achieved several Cs, several Ds and an F, despite having been an honors and gifted student at De La Salle High School and getting good to excellent grades when not being harassed or abused by my mom and stepdad or experiencing an attempt to throw me through a second story window in 1980, requiring over 50-days of hospitalization. The effects of the harassment, which many people, inlcuding the Asian American commnuity, face was a prolonged poor self-esteem and a sense of vulnerability so significant that I dropped out of professional life. My neighbor and coworker not long before this was U.S. Vice President Walter Mondale. My dad was an esteemed attorney but found my stories unpalatable and blamed me for the abuse. To this day, he will not talk to me.
Human rights efforts in our state and across the United States are vital for our commnuity to work and enjoy life to the fullest benefit of all of society. I have been ridiculed in the Minnesota DFL for having a “mental illness,” though the district chairman with whom I worked the longest, saw no aberrations in my personality. Depression, as I know it, affects my energy and my interest in taking part in life when I know or believe that I am unwanted. This has been a theme for over forty years for me, though I have made friends with among the wealthiest and most highly educated members of world society and have worked for, and in the spirit of, three Nobel Peace Prize Laureates either directly or indirectly through friends who were their friends and coworkers.
One of my dearest friend is a Chinese-American pathologist who has achieved her MS, PhD and MD and has spoken of her interest in marrying me despite my low income and having only a B.A. in history. She has spoken of her fears of moving to New York City given the hate crimes against Asians there. She came from mainland China, and her family were victims of the theft of personal property by Mao Tse-tung/Mao Zedong in his communist overthrow of the Chinese population. She is from a long line of physicians and business owners, as well as large property farmers. I support her in her efforts to complete her pathology residency and move into a lucrative career in that field. For twenty years, she was an HIV/AIDS researcher in Japan and the U.S. and won Rotary Club International’s Your Researcher of the year in two consecutive years while studying in Japan. She is aware of the defamation and brutality against me, but looks at my character, not my income or minor college experiences.
It is time that we open up the commnuity to learning about mental illness. Roughly 20% of the U.S. population experiences a mental illness which has been diagnosed. There are greater numbers of people with mental illnesses who refuse to go for assistance.
I served as an advisor to the Hennepin County Board of Commissioners and Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton in the Hennepin County Adult Mental Health Advisory Council with several physicians, nurses and social workers, thanks to Minnesota Senator Kari Dziedzic encouraging me to stand for the appointment when we met at Minnesota Senator Larry Pogemiller’s retuirement party from the sneate at Jax Cafe in northeast Minneapolis in 2011. I also served with several appointees who had mostly conquered problems with mental health conditions. I have additionally spoken on KFAI Radio to an audience of thousands around the world who called in and wrote in to say that I was one of the most interesting and informative speakers they had heard on the radio in forty years of KFAI’s broadcasts. I am currently entering a poverty ending career in the insurance industry. It is time that we also look at the horrors which people with mental illnesses experience due to cruel and violent people in the State of Minnesota.
Thank you for publishing my “cross-over” comment. I want to correct a problem with my typing in my comment. My Chinese American medical professional friend won Rotary International’s Young Researcher of the Year Award while studying in Tokyo as the advisee of a prominent medical professional and researcher who, himself, was an advisee of 1987 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine, Dr. Susumu Tonegawa of Japan.
I want the public to also know that scholarly work has enlightened people who care to read that over 49% of U.S. Presidents, from John Adams (and John Quincy Adams) to Gerald Ford, had mental illnesses like depression, bipolar mania, and alcoholism. What’s more, researchers have found that men and women with these conditions tend to be better than most at being compassionate as well as working with conflict.
The following authoritative artical in a medical journal discusses what percent of the U.S. is composed of Asians and Pacific Islanders, and of that cohort, what percentage has actively sought medical care for a mental health concern. This is important because stigma can intensify mental health problems, as I well know. I learned tonight that a man in the insurance industry who initially brought me on with starry comments about my heritage and history, upon learning of my depression and anxiety, cut bait and has tossed me out nito the ocean again. This is nothing new for me, but it is a violation of human rights laws, and it may be punishable by state licensing authorities. I will see.
Here is the report on Asians, mental illness, stigma and creating a more pallatable and nitelligent, compassionate and harmonious world: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/asian-american-mental-health#statistics
I may be dense and completely missing the point here, but I’m left understanding this article to be about drafting a bill that creates a database of perceived slights cataloged for no apparent applicable reason?
“We now know that 18 people in 2023 used slur Y to address members of group Y” therefore what?
This sounds more like a system applicable for a teacher to hand out weekly gold stars than any serious legislative attempt to solve a problem.
Confused in Mpls.