CEPA Working Paper No. 21-01 Hate Crimes and Black College Student Enrollment AUTHORS ABSTRACT Dominique J. Baker Reported hate crimes have increased rapidly in recent years, including on college Southern Methodist University campuses. Concurrently, general racial animus has increased in the United States. Scholars have shown that the larger sociopolitical environment can directly impact the campus Tolani Britton climate and experiences of all students, particularly students of color. However, little is known about how reports of hate crimes incidents relate to the college enrollment of University of California, Berkeley students of color. This lack of evidence is especially troubling for Black persons, the most frequent targets of reported hate crimes both on and off campus. This paper helps to fill in that gap by exploring the association between Black students’ college enrollment and the number of reports of hate crimes at two levels: the state and the institution. We examine a comprehensive dataset of institutional enrollment and characteristics, reported hate crimes, and Census data on state racial demographics from 1999 to 2017 using several techniques including institution fixed effects. We find that a standard deviation increase in reports of state-level hate crimes predicts a 20% increase in Black first-time student enrollment at HBCUs. As the number of reported hate crimes is almost assuredly an undercount of the actual number of incidents, we explore the implications of this work while keeping that limitation in mind. VERSION January 2021 Suggested citation: Baker, D.J., & Britton, T. (2021). Hate Crimes and Black College Student Enrollment. (CEPA Working Paper No.21-01). Retrieved from Stanford Center for Education Policy Analysis: http://cepa.stanford.edu/wp21-01 Hate Crimes and College Enrollment 1 Hate Crimes and Black College Student Enrollment Dominique Baker, Southern Methodist University a b Tolani Britton, University of California, Berkeley a The authors contributed equally to this study and names are listed in alphabetical order. b Corresponding Author. All inquiries should be addressed to Dominique Baker, Southern Methodist University, Education Policy and Leadership, PO Box 750114, Dallas, TX 7525-0114. Email: [email protected]. Phone: 214-768-1012. Acknowledgements: The authors would like to thank Benjamin Skinner, Denisa Gándara, and Sondra Barringer for their helpful comments. The authors would also like to thank the seminar participants at New York University for their constructive feedback and suggestions. The authors bear sole responsibility for the content of this article. Hate Crimes and College Enrollment 2 Abstract: Reported hate crimes have increased rapidly in recent years, including on college campuses. Concurrently, general racial animus has increased in the United States. Scholars have shown that the larger sociopolitical environment can directly impact the campus climate and experiences of all students, particularly students of color. However, little is known about how reports of hate crimes incidents relate to the college enrollment of students of color. This lack of evidence is especially troubling for Black persons, the most frequent targets of reported hate crimes both on and off campus. This paper helps to fill in that gap by exploring the association between Black students’ college enrollment and the number of reports of hate crimes at two levels: the state and the institution. We examine a comprehensive dataset of institutional enrollment and characteristics, reported hate crimes, and Census data on state racial demographics from 1999 to 2017 using several techniques including institution fixed effects. We find that a standard deviation increase in reports of state-level hate crimes predicts a 20% increase in Black first-time student enrollment at HBCUs. As the number of reported hate crimes is almost assuredly an undercount of the actual number of incidents, we explore the implications of this work while keeping that limitation in mind. Hate Crimes and College Enrollment 3 Hate Crimes and Black College Student Enrollment “Elections have consequences” - Barack Obama (2010). With the election of Donald Trump as United States president—and his rhetoric around immigrants and persons of color—came an increase in the number of reported hate crimes across the country. 1 Counties with the largest voting margins in favor of Trump also had a relatively larger number of reported hate crimes when compared to counties with smaller voting margins in favor of Trump (Edwards & Rushin, 2018). This could be because people were more aware of and more likely to report hate crimes due to this heightened rhetoric. Evidence suggests, however, that there was an increase in the number of incidents of hate crimes, not simply an increased awareness and reporting of these types of crimes (Edwards & Rushin, 2018). This escalation in reports of hate crimes matters because general racial animus has increased in the United States concurrent with this increase of incidences (Pew Research Center, 2019). Scholars have shown that the larger racial and sociopolitical environment has an influence on college campuses (Hurtado et al., 1998; Stokes, 2020; Van Dyke & Tester, 2014). Even with a robust body of literature available on national or institutional climates of racial animus and college climate, little is known about how reports of incidents, such as hate crimes, relate to the college enrollment decisions of students, particularly the enrollment of students of color. These types of relationships are critical to understand as they provide evidence of intersections between larger sociopolitical structures that dictate hate crime reporting, racism, and college enrollment. Part of the reason that there is less scholarship on this relationship is due to the difficulty of measuring the number of hate crimes or similar incidents. Nevertheless, the history and number of hate crimes in a geographic area influence the living conditions and perceptions of 1 We use the federal government’s definition of hate crime which are crimes based on race, national origin, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender, or disability. Hate Crimes and College Enrollment 4 those conditions for citizens. For example, King et al. (2009) found that counties with more lynchings prior to the 1930s were less likely to have police forces that complied with federal hate crimes laws and had fewer police reports of hate crimes 70 years later. Hate crimes, particularly in places with histories of racial violence, likely remain underreported. One reason that this might be the case is the populations targeted. Levin and Reitzel (2018) find that the majority of racial hate crimes target Black people in the United States. Hate crimes can impact living conditions of the targeted population in varied ways, from the physical to the psychological. For example, anti-racial and anti-sexual-orientation crimes were more likely to be directed against people compared to anti-religious hate crimes, which were directed against property (Cheng et al., 2013). While hate crimes against persons for racial and sexual orientation reasons might be more likely to lead to physical attacks on persons, hate crimes against religious ideas could be associated with attacks on buildings and institutions. Nevertheless, all hate crimes impact the sense of welcome and safety in a community. The influence of hate crimes on living conditions is felt in both social and educational settings. Since 2015, college campuses saw a 25% increase in the number of reported hate crimes (Bhattacharya, 2018). This paper explores whether increases in reports of hate crimes are associated with Black students’ college enrollment given this increase both within states and on college campuses. We focus on Black students because a) Black individuals are the most frequent target of reported racial hate crimes and b) there is a sector of higher education explicitly focused on helping these students succeed, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). We do this by addressing two different research questions through the lens of racial homophily, the seeking out of individuals who have the same race or spaces that are welcoming to one’s race. First, we explore whether Black students are more likely to enroll Hate Crimes and College Enrollment 5 in HBCUs in states where there are more reports of hate crimes when compared to college enrollment in states in which there are fewer reported hate crimes. This focuses on the ways that environmental racial animus may play a role in college enrollment decisions. Second, we explore whether hate crimes reported at individual institutions are related to the enrollment patterns of Black students. This investigation allows us to see how individual institutions’ reports of hate crimes correlate with institutional enrollment. The college decision process is complex. Student enrollment decisions are based on numerous familial, individual, institutional, and structural factors. Some familial and individual factors are race and ethnicity, gender, prior academic performance, knowledge of the college process, and family income (Kim & Núñez, 2013). Institutional aspects encompass the cost of attendance at a particular institution, the availability of financial aid, and distance of the institution from the student’s home (Dache-Gerbino, 2018; Perna, 2000; Scott-Clayton, 2015; Skinner, 2019). Some of the structural factors include the neighborhood poverty levels; urban, suburban, or rural locale of the secondary school; the resources available and quality of the secondary education and college counseling received; and state financial and equity support for higher education (Ananat et al., 2017; Baker, 2019; Perna, 2006). Perceptions of campus climates also play a role in the college enrollment decision. Rankin and Reason (2005) find that while students of all races and ethnicities report a similar level of knowledge of racial harassment incidents on campus, demographic differences exist with respect to the beliefs about whether a campus is racist or welcoming. Further, Black students are more likely to report racial-ethnic conflict on campus when compared to White students. There is, however, limited evidence as to whether either perceptions of campus climate or an increase Hate Crimes and College Enrollment 6 in the number and visibility of hate crimes on campuses relate to changes in decisions about college enrollment for Black students (Ancis et al., 2000). There are a number of reasons that an increase in reported hate crimes in a community might increase the likelihood of enrollment in HBCUs for Black students. One reason that students of color attend HBCUs is to learn in racially supportive environments (Laird et al., 2007; Palmer et al., 2010). If Black students feel that there is an increased likelihood of racial animus related incidents or a less welcoming climate at non-HBCUs institutions, they might be more likely to apply to and enroll in an HBCU. The increase in the number of racist incidents in campus communities could have increased the salience of racism and its occurrence on college campuses. This effect, in turn, could have encouraged a search for a more racially welcoming and homogenous climate. This study measures whether an association exists between the changes in the number of reported hate crimes in a community and the college enrollment decisions of Black students. It builds upon qualitative work that finds that a link exists between the “Missouri effect”—an increase in racial harassment of Black students on Historically White Institutions (HWIs) and student decisions to enroll in HBCUs (Williams & Palmer, 2019). To our knowledge, this is the first study that measures the association between racial animus within a state or institution and college enrollment decisions. In what follows, we provide an overview of the literature around hate crimes and racial incidents on college campuses; summarize our theoretical framework of racial homophily; present data, empirical models, and results; and conclude by discussing our findings and future directions for research. Hate Crimes and College Enrollment 7 Literature Review Hate Crimes The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) website (2020) defines a hate crime as a crime committed because of “race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, or disability.” Hate crimes receive a special designation under federal legal statues because of the disproportionate harm caused to both individuals and communities by these acts. According to estimates from the DOJ, there were over a quarter of a million hate crimes committed between 2004 and 2015; over half of these crimes were never reported to law enforcement. Certain types of hate crimes are more prevalent than others. For example, approximately half of all hate crimes were related to racial bias between 2011 and 2015 (Masucci & Langton, 2017). Black people are historically the most targeted racial or ethnic group (Levin & Reitzel, 2018). Much of the current data around hate crimes came as a result of the passage of the Hate Crime Statistics Act in 1990, which mandated that the attorney general collect data on hate crimes. There are two primary sources of data on hate crimes in the United States, the Bureau of Justice Statistics National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) and the Federal Bureau of Investigations Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) on Hate Statistics Data. The NCVS is collected annually from a nationally representative sample of approximately 160,000 persons (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2015). Data is collected on whether individuals were victims of a crime and their demographic characteristics. One important feature of this data is that it includes both crimes that were reported to the police and crimes that were never reported. By contrast, the UCR data provides the crimes voluntarily reported by police agencies each year. Importantly, not all states have UCR programs. For example, Indiana and Mississippi do not have these programs Hate Crimes and College Enrollment 8 (Davis & O’ Neill, 2016). Still, agencies within the states can choose to report these crimes, and the vast majority of research focused on colleges and hate crime reporting relies on UCR data (e.g., Janosik, 2004). In part due to the voluntary nature of agency reporting, hate crimes are underreported. Hate crimes remain underreported for a number of other reasons. Pezzella et al. (2019) find that victims of bias crimes are less likely to report them due to the lack of confidence in the police by the communities most likely to experience these crimes. These findings underscore the reality, delineated by King et al. (2009), that persons were less likely to report hate crimes in places that had more lynchings in the 1920s. Thus, a strong link exists between current perceptions of police protection and historical relationships in which police chose not to protect the rights of Black citizens. Further, Black, Latinx, and White victims are less likely to report any crime perpetrated by White persons as compared to those committed by persons of other racial and ethnic groups (Powers et al., 2020). Hate crime reporting also varies by state and jurisdiction. One barrier to accurate reports is that officers must recognize and report a hate crime as such, but there is relatively limited training of officers in recognizing this type of crime (Davis & O’Neill, 2016).2 Even if an individual describes or explicitly states that a crime is a hate crime, the officer ultimately decides whether the crime will be classified as one. Due to the subjective nature of the reporting of hate crimes, the DOJ (2020) website recommends that targets of hate crimes both report the crime to local police and call the FBI to report it as a hate crime. Another barrier to accurate reporting is that violent hate crimes have been historically less likely to end in arrest when compared with violent crimes that were not deemed hate crimes. Masucci and Langton (2017) report that 28% of 2 Recognizing includes both police officers understanding and acknowledging that a hate crime has occurred. These are two different processes that we wish to explicitly name since one assumes ignorance and the other intent. Hate Crimes and College Enrollment 9 violent crimes not related to hate led to arrests from 2011 to 2015, as compared to 10% of violent crimes with hate motivations. Individuals could also be leery of designating a crime as a hate crime when reporting to the police in light of the lower arrest rate for hate crimes. This could also be why half of all reported hate crimes were not reported to the police during the same time period (Masucci & Langton, 2017). Schools and universities are alternate places where victims of hate crimes report these incidents. Prior to 2008, campuses collected information on murder, sex offences, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, motor vehicle theft, and arson. In 2008, the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security and Campus Crime Statistics Act was amended to include data on hate crimes. The U.S. Department of Education (ED) now annually collects data on the prior three years of hate crime reports at each institution. It publicly reports on this information through the Digest of Education Statistics and through the Campus Safety and Security website. In 2017, there were approximately 958 incidents deemed hate crimes on campuses (Musu-Gillette et al., 2018). There is no current confirmatory data with respect to underreporting of hate crimes on college campuses. Similar to the challenges with respect to police reporting, campus safety officers must recognize and record incidents as hate crimes. For this reason, any research focused on reported hate crimes must accept the limitation that these crimes are underreported and that the counts must be viewed as the bare minimum number of incidents. Racist Incidents and College Campuses Racism on college campuses has a long history in the United States; examples begin before the founding of institutions focused on the education of Black students under the second Morrill Act of 1890 and include efforts to avoid integration of state land grant institutions, the existence of anti-Jewish sentiment in the 1920s, and incidents of hate because of ethnicity, race,