UNLV rewrites policy on hate crimes
A draft of UNLV's controversial hate crimes and bias incidents policy has been rewritten, taking much of the bite -- and the controversy -- out of it.
"In essence, we've thrown out the bias incidents part of it," said Richard Linstrom, the university's general counsel.
The proposed policy, which is set to go into effect July 1, came at the request of the higher education system's Board of Regents. The board a year ago asked all of the state's institutions to draft hate crimes policies.
But UNLV's draft also contained a section on bias incidents. They were loosely defined as acts that could intimidate or harass someone.
The section required the police to investigate such incidents.
The ACLU protested, as did the system's chancellor, Jim Rogers.
UNLV's president, David Ashley, appointed a committee to review and possibly rewrite the policy. That was done with input from administrators and faculty.
The new policy, which has gotten Ashley's OK, was pared from 14 pages to four. It defines a hate crime as something that is already a crime but one motivated by race, sex, age or a variety of similar factors.
John Filler, the president of UNLV's faculty senate, which fought against the earlier draft of the policy, said the faculty was glad to see the bias incidents part of the policy dropped.
He said the new policy is "pretty much in line with all the other ones" at the rest of the state's colleges.
Allen Lichtenstein, the ACLU's general counsel, was a critic of the earlier draft of the policy, declaring it unconstitutional.
The new policy is not so bad, he said.
"It's considerably improved," he said. He said there are still problems with the policy, but they are generally the same problems all such policies have in Nevada.
The state does not have a hate crimes law, making any institution's policy on hate crimes difficult to justify.
The higher education system is "talking about hate crimes when there's no such thing as a hate crime," he said.
The policy will be reviewed by the regents, but it will not require approval.
Contact reporter Richard Lake at rlake @reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0307.
