Hate Crimes

What is a Hate Crime?

A Hate Crime, also known as a bias-motivated incident, is a criminal offense committed against a person, property, or group, which is motivated, in whole or in part, by the offender's bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or ethnicity/national origin.

The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs reported 2,430 victims of anti-GLBTQ violence in 2007. A 24% increase over the total number of victims reported in 2006 (

There were 1,265 hate crimes motivated by sexual orientation bias reported to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 2007.

Colleges and universities are required by federal law to report bias-motivated crimes.

What is a Bias-Motivated Incident?

A Bias-Motivated Incident is known as a hate crime. All hate crimes are bias-motivated incidents, but not all bias-motivated incidents are crimes. Both hate crimes and bias-motivated incidents occur on college campuses and negatively affect the ability of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students to meet their educational goals in a safe and welcoming environment.

Bias motivated behavior includes intentionally or unintentionally directing any harmful or hurtful word or action toward an individual or group based upon actual or perceived identity characteristics including: race, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, ethnicity, culture, social economic status, gender identity or expression, cognitive, physical, or developmental ability, immigration status, military or veteran status, age, size, and/or shape. Bias motivated behavior may cause psychological, emotional, spiritual, and/or physical harm not only to those who experience the incident, but also to members of the group to which they belong. 

Bias-motivated incidents are known to occur on a daily basis and are largely under-reported.

The University of Northern Colorado does not condone bias-motivated incidents. The Dean of Students and the UNC Police Department request that everyone report any bias-motivated behavior witnessed or experienced.


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Bias-Motivated Incident Report