"reduce bias-based hate and prejudice through the development and dissemination of effective educational materials and programs."

Background

Although overall crime in the United States is on the decrease , bias-based hate crimes are on the increase . On January 8, 1998, Attorney General Janet Reno released a statement revealing that more than 4,700 hate crimes were based on race, more than 1,400 based on religion, and more than 1,100 based on sexual orientation in 1997. She said "These statistics show what we long believed is true: hate crimes have long gone underreported."

In the same statement, Janet Reno further wrote, "As I travel across this country, I see more anti-bias training and conflict resolution programs than ever before. In our schools and in our communities, I see them working." But if these programs are working, why are hate crimes continuing to increase year-by-year and the level of violence becoming more brutal?

This is what concerns the members of Stop Hate, EDUCATE! More and more anti-bias trainings are taking place, but they seem to be ineffective.

We understand that part of the increase in hate crime reports is related to police being instructed in identifying these kinds of crimes and reporting methods. Even still, reported crimes represents just a small portion of the overall level of crimes being committed due to race, religion, sexual orientation, ability, gender , age , and others. We want to see this violence stop. We want to see prejudice reduced.

So what about anti-bias training, just how effective is it? We really don't know. There are many many companies and persons involved in anti-bias training (sometimes known as "sensitivity training," "multicultural education," "diversity training," "cultural awareness," "sexual harassment," and other names). But no company publishes reports detailing the effectiveness of their programs. If you contact these businesses, they provide you with a list of their "satisfied" customers, but without any measure of their program effectiveness.

Historically, we have seen anti-bias training programs instigated as the result of lawsuit or conflict within a business, school, police department, or else where. Professional trainers are hired; they conduct a one-time program and leave. Attendees report that they feel they are being punished for some vague reason and resent the training. Management uses the fact that employees have been "trained" as evidence that the offending or illegal behavior has been resolved. But did anyone learn anything and was bias reduced? No one knows. The most any of these training companies use are opinion surveys at the end of the training where students are asked if they liked the class. In education parlance, these are known as "popularity assessments." They do not tell you if students learned anything, or if feelings, beliefs, or behaviors were changed.

Research into cultural awareness training programs in California police academies and agencies discovered (a) every trainer and program administrator displayed great pride in their program, felt that they were "light-years" ahead of all other diversity programs, and that they did not need to consult with other experts nor observed or contact other diversity training programs to learn techniques or obtain additional teaching materials, (b) none of the programs were evaluated through the use of pre- and post psychometric assessments, content assessments, or in-depth interview, and (c) they relied solely on "popularity" surveys of students to determine program effectiveness. As such, it seems the very pride diversity trainers and administrators have in their programs seems to usurp their motivation to conduct accurate assessments or learn from others.

We simply don't know the effectiveness of anti-bias programs currently conducted by the diversity training industry. We do know that they are not subjected to methodologically sound assessment techniques and they seem to not be working.

Goals

Stop Hate, EDUCATE! wants effective anti-bias educational programs to be used throughout the diversity training industry- ones that have been accurately assessed to transmit knowledge and change feelings and beliefs. To that end, we hope to identify anti-bias training programs and materials that are proven to be effective and help distribute them nationwide directly to those who are either trainers on multiculturalism or in the position to implement such programs. Hopefully, sufficient funds will be raised to offer these materials free-of-charge to the recipients. In those cases where we find a lack of training materials, we will create and distribute them ourselves.