Social work participates in Erase the Hate campaign

Media Credit: Courtesy of Theatre Department, Laura Campbell, Eric Dobbins and Curt Mega starred in "The Laramie Project," a play about hate crimes.

Fort Worth, TX

9/26/2008

By Hannah Mathews, TCU Office of Communications

Between 2004 and 2006, there were roughly as many individual victims of hate crimes each year as there are undergraduate students at TCU – approximately 7,000 per year – according to statistics from the FBI’s Web site.

“It is important that TCU students get out of the mind set that hate crimes just happen to a select group of people,” Blade Berkman, a junior social work major and president of the Gay-Straight Alliance at TCU, said.

GSA and the social work department helped organize the Erase Hate Campaign alongside Brite Divinity School and the theatre department during early October.

GSA asked the social work department to help the Erase Hate Campaign by sponsoring events on campus.

“Social work itself is what motivated us to create this campaign,” Berkman said of GSA’s involvement. “The fundamental values of service, social justice, dignity and worth of person, the importance of human relationships, integrity and competence united both social work and the goals of the Erase Hate Campaign.”

The campaign kicked off with a production of “The Laramie Project” – a play that reflects the murder of University of Wyoming student, Matthew Sheppard – at Hays Theatre.

The social work department helped to contribute funding for tickets to “The Laramie Project” so that people, who wouldn’t have otherwise attended the play, had a chance.

The campaign also included classroom and public discussions about hate crimes to help generate awareness at TCU by Thomas Howard, Jr. of the Matthew Sheppard Foundation and Harry Knox of the Human Rights Campaign.

“Awareness is the key to success of a cause; raising awareness of the existence and reality of hate crimes was the central premise of the campaign,” Berkman said.

GSA also screened the film, “The Life and Times of Morris Kight,” a documentary on the Los Angeles-based gay rights activist who graduated from TCU in 1942, followed by a candlelight vigil honoring Matthew Sheppard.

Berkman was pleased with the success of the campaign.

“Issues are being discussed campuswide and in classrooms,” Berkman commented. “Discussions have brought about awareness and more. I hope it is something that we can continue in the future.”