Outreach associate Brandon Wilson speaks in Idaho. (Doug Lindley/Idaho State Journal)

That's Brandon Wilson's task as an outreach associate with the Center's website-based activism project, Tolerance.org.

Wilson is charged with helping college and university communities turn the ideas presented in 10 Ways to Fight Hate on Campus into reality, bringing on-the-ground changes to campuses scarred by hate.

Students often fail to respond
"When students are victimized, or when they are witnesses, many fail to respond appropriately, if they respond at all," Wilson said. "10 Ways to Fight Hate on Campus helps students rise up to hate and seize it as a learning opportunity."

The Center launched 10 Ways to Fight Hate on Campus last fall. Wilson began his outreach efforts simultaneously with the handbook's publication, inviting interested campuses to receive free copies of it and offering his services to campuses in the midst or aftermath of bias incidents.

The Center knew the need was there. FBI and U.S. Department of Education statistics indicate that every day a hate crime occurs on a college campus. And ongoing studies show that every year at least 500,000 college students are targets of bias-driven slurs or physical assaults. Examples of bias on campuses occur across the country:

• In New York, at Columbia University, a cartoon in "The Fed" newspaper during Black History Month had panels with captions including, "Black people were invented in the 1700s as a form of cheap labor."

• Groups at universities in Washington, Utah, Colorado, Texas and New York — among other states — have held divisive so-called "Affirmative Action Bake Sales," with prices tied to race, ethnicity and religion. Protests and ill will followed many such sales.

• A decision by the College Republicans group at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island to offer a "whites-only" scholarship created similar tensions and divisiveness.

• A January frat party blackface incident at Georgia State University prompted a March meeting to discuss racism on campus.

• Hundreds of Georgetown University students have been speaking out against racism following a slur-filled email sent to the Black Students Alliance.

• Someone scrawled racist graffiti on the NAACP office door at the University of Alabama.

Wilson and others were surprised at the rapid and massive response to the new guidebook. Requests poured in. By March, all the initial inventory — 50,000 copies — had been shipped to students and administrators on campuses across the country.

And by March, Wilson had booked campus visits across the country. In February alone, Wilson visited campuses in Alabama, Colorado, Minnesota, Nebraska and New York.

Wilson is also coordinating a media outreach campaign, including posters, newspaper advertisements and public service announcements for campus radio stations throughout the nation. He is also appearing as a guest on radio and TV programs, discussing campus hate crimes and bias incidents in a variety of locations.

Wilson brings a personal, as well as professional, level of expertise to his work.

A 2002 graduate of Auburn University in Alabama, he was part of that campus community during and after two incidents involving fraternity members wearing blackface and other racially offensive costumes to Halloween parties.

Armed with those firsthand lessons, and the new guidebook, Wilson hopes to help students and others rise up against hate and intolerance in effective, long-lasting ways.

"Everybody has experienced hate," Wilson said. "However, not everybody knows how to respond to hate."

The new handbook can be found on the Center's website at www.tolerance.org/campus.

SPLC Report
March 2004