Issue date: 11/5/07 Section: News

Media Credit: Doug Klembara Victor Mondragon, Jennifer Mueller, Lee Gunter and the Rev. Kris Erskine, left to right, participate in a roundtable discussion Friday about Jena Six in the Harrington Education building. The panel discussed Jena Six, a case of black high school students that were charged with attempted murder in Jena, La. [Click to enlarge]

The Student Government Association Diversity Committee began a campus discussion on the incident in Jena Thursday at the Jena Six Roundtable.

After a black student tried to defy local tradition by sitting under the "white tree" in September 2006, a series of events were set off that have turned Jena, La. into a flash point over the issue of racial bias in the criminal justice system. Three nooses appeared on the tree a day after the black student sat under it, and not long afterward, the authorities said a white student had been beaten by six black schoolmates. The white student was treated at a local hospital and released; the black students were charged, not with assault, but with attempted murder.

Kimberly Brown, director of Africana studies, acted as moderator, posing six questions to a four-member panel and handling questions and comments from the audience that turned up in a lecture hall in the HECC Building:

Q: Should hanging a noose from a tree be considered a hate crime?

A: Lee Gunter, chairman of the MSC Wiley Lecture Series, responded in the affirmative, giving out the definition of a hate crime as "the violence of intolerance and bigotry, intended to hurt and intimidate someone because of their race, ethnicity, national origin, religious, sexual orientation or disability," pointing out that acts, with racial overtones, intended to intimidate fall under this classification. He said, "Of all crimes, hate crimes are most likely to create or exacerbate tensions, which can trigger larger communitywide racial conflict, civil disturbances and even riots."

Continued...

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