UB Law Forum

Volume 6 Number 2 Spring/Summer 1992 Article 26

4-1-1992

The High Price of Hate Crimes: Activist Cites New Racial Intolerance

UB Law Forum

Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.law.buffalo.edu/ub_law_forum

Recommended Citation UB Law Forum (1992) "The High Price of Hate Crimes: Activist Cites New Racial Intolerance," UB Law Forum: Vol. 6 : No. 2 , Article 26. Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.buffalo.edu/ub_law_forum/vol6/iss2/26

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Alumni Publications at Digital Commons @ University at Buffalo School of Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in UB Law Forum by an authorized editor of Digital Commons @ University at Buffalo School of Law. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The High Price of Hate Crimes Activist cites new racial intolerance

suit against the Kl an for the death of arrested. Dees' southern accent thick- ' 'I' m far from being free of prejudice," civil Michael McDonald, a black man mur­ ened as he related the story to law stu- • rights activist and attor­ dered by the Klan in Mobile, Ala­ dents. ney Morris Dees told a bama. Dees won a $7 million verdict "My father told me to get Clar­ group of students at UB against the United Klans of America, ence out of jail," he recalled. The February 20. "I grew up in this coun­ bankrupting the organization. The hired man, Clarence Williams, was try." verdict against the Metzgers was for charged with assaulting a police offi­ The subject was race relations, $ 12.5 million. The message, Dees cer who arrested him for drunk driv- the occasion the sixteenth annual said, is that these groups will "have to in g. Ma11in Luther King Commemoration. pay out of their pocketbooks." Dees described his trip to another Dees, founder of the Southern Pover­ Fighting for the underdog was county, where the judge, who also ran UB LAW not how Morris Dees began his ca­ the general store, was holding court ty Law Center and its outgrowth, FOR UM Klanwatch, was the keynote speaker reer. He grew up the son of a tenant behind the store counter, carving of the event, which drew a full house fa rmer in Alabama, and received his cheese during the proceedings. The Spring/ to Slee Hall on the Amherst campus. first lesson in justice as a teenager, sheriff told how Clarence was driving, Summer 1992 Earlier in the day, he met with a when the family's "hired man" was ran off the road, staggered and then mixed crowd of about 50 law stu­ dents, faculty and undergraduates. Along with his audiences, Dees is concerned about the increase in in­ tolerance in the United States, as ex­ emplified by the David Duke phe­ nomenon in Louisiana. His remark about prej udice came in response to an Asian-American student who spoke of hi s fears in the wake of in­ creased "Japan bashing". Organized hate groups li ke the Klu Klu x Klan, Dees explained, are not the source of most bias or hate crimes in the coun ­ try. "There is a ri sing tide of racial vi­ olence. But hate groups don' t commit these crimes. They are commjtted by our next-door neighbors." Dees has been most successfu l in prosecuting hate groups, however. He and the Southern Poverty Law Center prosecuted the Metzgers of California for the White Aryan Resistance mur­ der of an Ethiopian man in Oregon last year. Dees also brought the 1988 Civil rights attvmey Morris Dees addresses studem fontm. 49 swung at him. Dees had spoken to Levin Jr. inl97 1, founded.the South­ committed by white supremists." Clarence before, and was told Clar­ ern Poverty Law Center. Klanwatch Dees had a comment on the mar­ ence had run off the road when the tie was formed from the Center in 1980, ketplace for a law student who asked rod on the car broke, and bumped hi s in response to the resurgence in orga­ why he suggested j oining a firm in­ head. When he told the Sheriff, the nized racism. stead of starting a public interest prac­ Sheri ff stated,"Nigger, I'm taking you A book read in an airport in 1967 tice. to jail." was the real inspiration, Dees said, for "There are so few jobs in the pub­ "I said, ' Clarence, tell the story to hi s work. "I had done some ACLU lic interest sector," he stated. "If you the judge,"' Dees said. "He did. The stuff, had hauled marchers in Selma, can start your own, you should. But judge slammed down the cheese but in 1967, I read The Story of My just because you can' t get a job in pub­ kn ife. He said 'Guilty. $ 100 fine. Life, by Clarence Darrow. Darrow lic interest doesn' t mean you can' tjoin Bubba, tell your daddy to send up $2 was an attorney for the railroads dur­ a firm and do good work." a week."' · ing labor union strikes early in the Second-year law student Erika Later, Dees said, he found out the century and observed the railroad Raymond asked whether Dees felt civil judge received payment only on hired stri kebreakers brutalizing the ri ghts li tigation was still a viable strat­ guilty findings, and thus had some in­ workers. Darrow represented the egy, given the ultra-conservati ve centi ve for hi s verd ict. Dees later sued strikers, but the railroads kept him on makeup of the U.S. Supreme Court. the state and had the system abol­ doing corporate law because of hi s " Bush and Reagan have appointed ished. ski lls. 70 percent of the sitting federal judg­ But that was not the end of the "I went home and set out to do es," Dees agreed. "You've seen cut­ UB LAW matter. Dees went back to his father what I said I would," Dees sajd, backs in criminal law, parti cul arl y and related the story. "If you so mad, which meant doing what the SPLC search and seizure, fueled by the drug FOR UM why don' t you go to law school," sug­ speciali zes in: voting rights, hate war. Yes, it's a Jot tougher to bring but Sprinfil gested hi s father. crimes and women's rights cases. there's lots of laws on the books and if Summer " He didn' t want me to grow cot­ "I try to represent the powerl ess you find a violation, you should win on /992 ton," Dees confessed. "He said he'd against the powerful ," he said. " l them." He conceded the Center was never seen a boll weevil in a law haven' t got anything against the pow­ moving its focus from the courtroom to book." erful. l tell people to go to big firms the classroom, but deni ed it was be­ and do pro cause of conservative judicial leanings. bono. If " In our kind of work, even Reagan and you work Bush appointees don' t di sagree with for those us," he said. "We use state courts. "We must understand that places, Whether you can bring up new issues, you can I don't know. I don't think there will we are all victims. " have a be new Brown v. Board of Educa­ positi ve tions." influence. Dees does see a correlation be­ Dees did go to law school, but The bottom line doesn' t have to be tween economic hard times and ri sing not before he establ ished a successful reached at the mi sery of consumers." racism, pointing out that when the direct-mail publishing business. He SPLC relies on volunteer attor­ economy goes, histori cally blame is graduated from theUn iversity of Ala­ ·neys, three in the case of the Metzger placed on immigrants and minorities. bama School of Law in 1960, and prosecution. "We do a few cases, we The solution, he feels, is in education. opened an office in Montgomery. He try to do them well and try to set pre­ He told his audience how the mother was indirectly involved in the civil cedents." In addition, the Center does of Mi chael McDonald. the lynched Al­ rights movement during the late educational outreach, inc luding a pro­ abama man, had forgi ven her son's 1960s, and in 196 7 sued the state to gram called "TeachingTolerance," for killers. stop construction of a white uni versity use by teachers in schools. ··we must understand that we are in a city which already had a predom­ .. We're a mul ti-cultural society all victims. We talk about the trivial inantl y black state college. He sold growing much more so. and we have differences. poli tical correctness. We the publishing husiness in 1969, and. growing problems with intolerance:· must think about the lesson of love.'' 50 along with Julian Bond and Joseph J. Dees said . .. Most hate crimes are not he concluded.•