Testimony of Deborah M. Lauter, Executive Director, New York City Office for the Prevention of Hate Crimes, Before the United States House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Reform
Edited by: TJVNews.com
Good Morning Chairwoman Maloney, Ranking Member Jordan and members of the committee. I am Deborah Lauter, Executive Director of the New York City Office for the Prevention of Hate Crimes. On behalf of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to participate in this hearing which is being held in conjunction with the 75th Anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, and commend Chairwoman Maloney for using this occasion to focus on the importance of remembering the Holocaust in order to help combat hate and violence of all kinds today.
The NYC Office for the Prevention of Hate Crimes opened just five months ago under legislation adopted by the NY City Council in January, 2019. Mayor Bill de Blasio, while celebrating that overall crime had gone down in NYC, was concerned about the rise in hate crimes and escalated the opening of this office months ahead of schedule. Our City leaders recognized that it was not enough to just condemn hate crimes after the fact. They took tangible action to put in place an initiative to address the problem long-term, and holistically.
We believe that it is the first such comprehensive city-wide approach in the nation. I am gratified to lead this new office, and bring to it a three-decade career of combatting stereotypes, prejudice, discrimination, hate and extremism—including 18 years at the Anti-Defamation League where I served as National Civil Rights Director and Senior Vice President of Policy and Programs, overseeing the Education Division including anti-bias training programs, and Holocaust education. I also serve on the Board of Directors of the Olga Lengyel Institute for Holocaust Studies and Human Rights, which provides professional development training to educators in the U.S. and Europe on how to teach the Holocaust.
I know the impact that Holocaust education can have on reducing all forms of prejudice, discrimination and all forms of hate. The early opening of the NYC Office for the Prevention of Hate Crimes proved prescient—bias incidents and hate crimes, particularly targeting religious Jews in three Brooklyn neighborhoods, continued and we saw an increase in reports of swastika graffiti. In December the shocking anti-Semitic murders in Jersey City, New Jersey and the vicious attacks on Jews praying in a rabbi’s home in Monsey, New York, escalated the fear in the New York Jewish communities, particularly in members of the Chassidic communities who were closely related to the victims in those attacks. In 2019 there were 428 hate crime incidents in NYC, representing a 20% increase over the previous year. Of those, 234 (55%) were motivated by anti-Semitism.
While these first months have required priority attention to the Jewish community, I have been committed to working on behalf of and meeting with representatives of other groups that are vulnerable to hate incidents, including leaders from Muslim, immigrant and LGBTQ communities. They report that their communities, too, are experiencing an upsurge in bias motivated incidents and hate crimes; yet many of these incidents go unreported. A goal of the Office for the Prevention of Hate Crimes is to address this problem of under-reporting not only so that we can support and get help for victims, but so we can fully understand the scope of the problem and recommend strategies and resources to address it. The recent anti-Semitic hate crimes punctuate exactly why we have hate crimes penalty enhancement laws in the first place.
Bias-motivated crimes strike at the heart of a victim’s identity and create insecurity and fear at a much deeper level than other crimes. As explained in the legislative history for the NY State hate crime law that was adopted in 2000: “Crimes motivated by invidious hatred toward particular groups not only harm individual victims but send a powerful message of intolerance and discrimination to all members of the group to which the victim belongs. Hate crimes can and do intimidate and disrupt entire communities and vitiate the civility that is essential to healthy democratic processes.
In a democratic society, citizens cannot be required to approve of the beliefs and practices of others, but must never commit criminal acts on account of them.” So how do we prevent hate? There is not one way. And there is certainly is no short-term fix for the longest hatred, anti-Semitism. This fight requires a multi-pronged approach, and our Office for the Prevention of Hate Crimes is following a strategy that focuses on three pillars: law enforcement, education, community relations. With respect to law enforcement, the NYPD has done an outstanding job responding to the increase in reported hate crimes through its investigative Hate Crime Task Force, and it has increased patrols, security cameras and neighborhood lighting in the most impacted neighborhoods.
In December 2019, The NYPD announced creation of a proactive intelligence gathering unit within the Department’s Intelligence Bureau known as the “R.E.M.E.” unit with a primary function of identifying threats and investigating racially and ethnically motivated extremism threats from individuals and/or organizations. Additionally, millions of local, state and federal dollars are now being made available to enhance security and training, including active shooter training. It is also critical that resources are dedicated to information sharing, to provide accurate metrics ahead of implementing new security measures. The NYPD has taken the unprecedented step of making much of the crime data developed in the CompStat model available to the public.
This advancement, called CompStat 2.0, provides greater specificity about crimes through an online interactive experience. According to a 2018 survey by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germans (the Claims Conference), young Americans are displaying an alarming lack of knowledge about the Holocaust. Nearly one in two millennials asked could not name a single extermination camp, where millions of Jews were systematically killed, worked to death and experimented on by Nazi doctors. Many today also underestimate the scale of the Holocaust, and 70 percent of American adults agreed that fewer people seem to care about it today than in the past. Just last week, a new Pew study reported that less than half of American adults are aware of basic facts regarding Nazism and the Holocaust, and only 33% of teens know the number of Jews who were killed and how Nazis came to power.
Recognizing that education needs to be a critical element in the long-term strategy to prevent bias and hate crimes, in December 2019 the OPHC and the NYC Department of Education developed a compendium of currently available resources for teachers to educate their students about the consequences of hate and the importance of fostering respect, including curricula on anti-Semitism and the Holocaust.
NYC Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza disseminated these resources to 150,000 educators along with a letter stating, “School community conversations are a way to create meaningful dialogue and provide the opportunity to share beliefs and feelings” and he encouraged teachers to have conversations with their students about the recent rise in hate crimes.
Following the dissemination of these resources, I visited a high school visit in Brooklyn, where we had deep conversations with 10th graders about the consequences of hate and the impact of recent hate crimes on their neighbors in Brooklyn. One student told me how racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, Islamophobic, and other offensive speech has become normalized in school (though usually not within earshot of their teachers). Another then said, “They make us learn math, science, English. I really wish they would require us to learn how to respect each other.”
On January 15, 2019, the Mayor announced a partnership between the DOE and the Museum of Jewish Heritage (MOJH) exhibit, “Auschwitz. Not Long Ago. Not Far Away,” as part of the City’s commitment to implementing hate crime awareness programming in schools across NYC. The DOE is working closely with principals to send eighth and tenth-grade classes, totaling 14,000 students, on field trips to the Museum this year. In addition, all New York City public school families with students aged 12 and over are being offered four tickets to visit the Museum free of charge. We believe that educating adults through these museum visits will be another important tool in the fight against anti-Semitism and hate.
In addition to these field trips, the DOE is expanding its efforts to bring Holocaust survivors to speak in schools, and the reports we receive from the schools is that such programs are incredibly moving for the students and serve as a way to engage diverse students in discussions on contemporary issues such as the rise in hate crimes. While the number of survivors diminishes by the day, it is critically important that we keep alive their stories through the provision of resources such as recordings of witnesses, movies, books, and visits to museums. Holocaust education not only teaches about that historical event, but provides a vehicle through which schools can explore concepts of democracy, justice, equality, identity, and the consequences of being a bystander or upstander.
One of the main drivers of hate crime numbers in NYC this past year has been the startling increase in swastika graffiti. Of the 243 anti-Semitic hate crimes in 2019, 76% were swastika vandalism. Some were perpetrated by adults who are associated with white extremist groups, and some were drawn by kids as young as 11 who knew they were doing something bad, but did not know the meaning behind the swastika and the fear that the symbol engenders.
In New York State, the drawing of a swastika with the intent to intimidate automatically escalates the underlying crime of vandalism to a hate crime. As the Office for the Prevention of Hate Crimes addresses long-term responses to hate violence, we are looking at restorative justice models for hate crime perpetrators, including one implemented by the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office where middle schoolers convicted of swastika vandalism, were required to tour the Auschwitz exhibit and learn about Nazis, their hate ideology and its genocidal consequences. In addition to law enforcement responses and education initiatives, the third pillar of fighting anti-Semitism and all forms of hate and bigotry, is through community relations.
Tomorrow morning, I will join a Chassidic rabbi in Brooklyn at public schools in his neighborhood to provide the students with an opportunity to ask questions about his religious garb and traditions. The rabbi will share his personal history of how so many in his family were murdered by the Nazis and will teach students about how important the United States has been in providing a haven to Jews and other minorities who seek religious freedom and safety. Many of the students in the neighborhood are from recent immigrant families. We believe that providing opportunities for such interaction will not only break down fears of “the other” that can lead to prejudice and discrimination, but will also highlight their commonalities and foster empathy that will have a long-term impact on reducing bias, bias incidents and ultimately hate violence against all vulnerable populations.
This past Friday, Mayor de Blasio also announced the launch of our new Neighborhood Safety Coalitions (NSCs). Made up of a diverse cross-section of each of the three neighborhoods in Brooklyn that have significant religious Jewish communities, these coalitions are modeled on anti-violence programs that have for years operated throughout NYC as proven ways to generate safety by neighbors for their neighborhoods.
Each NSC consists of leaders from community religious congregations, local organizations, tenant associations, community boards, businesses, and schools who will develop innovative, long-term strategies that promote respect and generate concrete strategies to address root causes of hate crimes, mobilizing residents in response to incidents, and promoting cultural understanding among community groups that leads to opportunities for positive social interaction. Just as our country has gained an awareness that it is more prudent and cost-effective to invest in health wellness programs that prevent disease, so too will we benefit from investing in education and community relations programs that prevent the virus of hate from spreading. No one is born hating. We call on Congress to join cities across the nation in investing time and resources to teach our children respect and empathy through a critical understanding of history. Thank you again for the opportunity to testify today. I am happy to answer any questions that you may have.
