Hate targeting LGBTQ+, Jewish and immigrant Oregonians grows fast, according to hotline
PORTLAND – Reports of hate directed at LGBTQ+ Oregonians increased at some of the swiftest rates of any group in the state over the past three years, according to the state’s annual Bias Crimes Report released last week.
People targeted because of their sexual orientation jumped fivefold – from 96 calls in 2020 to the Oregon Department of Justice’s Bias Response Hotline to 509 calls in 2022. Reports of bias based on gender identity increased sevenfold – from 51 calls in 2020 to 377 in 2022.
Other fast-growing reasons people in Oregon were victimized included their Jewish faith or status as immigrants. Both groups reported a fivefold increase – 187 anti-Jewish and 252 anti-immigrant calls to the hotline in 2022.
The latest numbers were tabulated by the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission and released Friday. The commission has tracked trends based on hotline data since 2020, the first year the hotline was operational.
“Hate is a stain on our state,” Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum said in a written statement. “Everyone should feel like they belong in Oregon.”
Call takers at the hotline count reports of hate crimes – such as hate-based vandalism and assaults – and hate incidents, which often include bigoted slurs and offensive statements but don’t fit the legal definition of a crime.
Among the wide-ranging encounters reported to the hotline over the past few years: grocery stores or restaurants refusing to serve customers; runners and dog walkers shoved to the ground in parks; police officers flashing hate symbols while on the job; local government allowing hate groups to adopt a highway; and people defacing books written by LGBTQ+ people or people of color.
The number of hate crimes and incidents reported to the hotline has increased from about 900 in 2020 to more than 1,400 in 2021 and more than 2,500 in 2022. Over the past three years, that’s a near tripling.
Officials at the Oregon Department of Justice believe the numbers are ballooning because of the public’s increasing familiarity with the hotline, but also because the encounters are happening more often.
This year’s report found that while hateful encounters grew most rapidly against immigrants, people of Jewish faith and LGBTQ+ people, Black Oregonians by far were still the most frequently targeted. The hotline received 450 reports of anti-Black encounters in 2020 and 610 in 2022.
Hate reports in K-12 schools also increased – from 36 in 2020 to 408 in 2022. That’s in part a reflection of pandemic closures in 2020. But it also reflects a burgeoning trend, said Fay Stetz-Waters, director of civil rights and social justice at the Oregon Department of Justice.
“It’s just a lot of the nastiness you see online trickling down into schools,” Stetz-Waters said. “Repeating that harm for laughs, for giggles.”
Among the many numbers in this year’s report, several new categories emerged. In 2020 and 2021, the hotline received no reports of bias directed at people of Ukrainian descent. In 2022, it received 13 such calls.