Is Neil Gajare an anti-Semite? I, for one, can’t say. But as a Jew who was more confused than offended by the collage of swastikas and rabbits Gajare confessed to drawing in a Sargent Hall stairwell, I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt.
Northwestern has endured more than a dozen so-called hate crimes, incidents of bias, etc., since the current streak began in 2003. Remarkably, Gajare’s arrest marks the first time a suspect has actually been caught. It’s the first time that NU has gotten a chance to look one of its potential hate criminals in the eye. What has it seen? A freshman who had just broken up with his girlfriend, got too drunk and then later, perhaps fraught with guilt, confessed to a community assistant. Even Gajare’s Jewish friends told The Daily how puzzled they were by the whole thing. If he is convicted, Gajare would belie everything we’ve come to imagine about hate criminals.
To be sure, Gajare’s actions are inexcusable and he deserves to be punished. But the incident raises an interesting question: What happens when a hate crime is committed by someone who doesn’t really seem all that hateful? The incident, in fact, reveals the absurdity of the concept of the hate crime, which, by provoking paranoia and racial hypersensitivity, does more to hurt the cause of diversity than help it.
NU’s strange involvement with hate crimes began in February 2003 when several black students in the Ayers College of Science and Industry found their doors vandalized by racist graffiti. In the years afterward, a string of similar incidents followed: racist epithets were scrawled on dormitory doors, swastikas were found on whiteboards and in dorm stairwells. In one case in November 2003, a three-foot swastika was drawn on the outside wall or Norris University Center alongside the phrase,”Die Jews.”
Naturally, nearly every one of these incidents made the front page of The Daily, and the hysteria spread into local newspapers as well. Committees were convened and token amendments were made to NU’s student handbook. Then, on Nov. 8, 2003, then-Communication freshman Jaime “Xander” Saide stunned students by claiming that he had been held at knifepoint outside Chapin Hall as an assailant whispered “Spic” into his ear. Saide reported the incident to the police – then marched into The Daily newsroom and spilled the story to a reporter. A 500-student anti-hate rally took place at The Rock later that week. “It’s our fault, it’s all our faults,” one student was quoted as saying at the rally.
A week later, police arrested Saide and revealed he made it all up. NU had been chumped. The hate crimes continued, but the reaction could never be the same.
In a way we’ve been chumped again. Perhaps expecting an acolyte of Matthew Hale, or at least somebody a little less like the rest of us, we got Gajare. Some campus conservatives may be tempted to use the example of Gajare – as they did with Saide – to make the claim that all hate crimes are fake. But this is obviously not true, and it insults the intelligence of those who have actually been hurt by these crimes.
The point is not that some hate crimes may have been bogus; it’s that by labeling them “hate crimes” and thus assuming that they are all motivated by actual racial, religious or ethnic hatred – rather than by drunken misjudgments or, more likely, a desire to make headlines – students get the misimpression that they are surrounded by hate. Crying “hate crime” at the sight of every swastika actually hurts the cause of diversity because it generates suspicion, paranoia and a degree of racial hypersensitivity that precludes an honest discussion about the cause of these acts. The irresponsible coverage of these events by this newspaper is also at fault here.
By no means am I suggesting that racist graffiti is no cause for concern whatsoever. But calling it a hate crime gets us nowhere.
Assistant City editor and former Daily Forum editor Dan Strumpf is a Medill junior. He can be reached at
