The University of Colorado has received nearly $2 million from the U.S. Department of Justice to help fight hate crimes at all four campuses in the university system.
Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Program Grant is $1,999,939 and will go toward the University of Colorado Boulder’s Police Department and Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence. The goal is to create a collaborative approach to preventing and responding to hate crimes.
“The United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Colorado has a long-standing commitment both to investigating and prosecuting hate crimes and to engaging with the community on this topic,” said Acting United States Attorney for the District of Colorado Matt Kirsch in a statement. “Public education on the tools available to prevent and address hate crimes is fundamental to these efforts, and we are proud to work with the University of Colorado.”
The funds are expected to be used to educate and train campus officials on coordinated strategies for preventing, intervention, and addressing hate-based incidents and hate crimes in Boulder, Colorado Springs and Denver. The grant is expected to serve 60,000 students, 23,000 faculty and staff, and 60 law enforcement officers.
“CUPD will continue to work collaboratively with violence prevention researchers and other experts to create an effective, broad-reaching campaign to combat targeted violence,” Doreen Jokerst, Chief of Police of the CU Boulder Police Department.
The grant is named after two high-profile victims of hate crimes in 1998. James Byrd, Jr., was picked up by three men while walking back to his apartment in Jasper, Texas, in June 1998. The men beat the 49-year-old. Then, they chained him by the ankles to the back of their truck and dragged him down a deserted rural road. His body was found later in front of a local African American church.
Later that year, Matthew Shepard, a gay student at the University of Wyoming, was brutally attacked and tied to a fence outside Laramie, Wyoming. The 21-year-old died from his injuries at Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins five days later.
Both incidents prompted the U.S. Congress to pass the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Act in 2009.
