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This chapter examines the 1999 trial of Aaron McKinney for the murder of Matthew Shepard, a gay student at the University of Wyoming whose death propelled forward an incipient movement to legislate against hate crimes. It explores the competing ways in which Aaron McKinney was conjured as a legal persona, defined through the opposing lenses of gay panic and of homophobic hate. It situates those personae in conflicting narratives of criminal culpability emerging out of indeterminate legal doctrines and definitions (the unwritten law; the meaning of ‘malice’), and argues that in conjuring them, adversarial criminal trials necessarily destabilise the ‘default legal person’. In doing so, trials performatively reconstruct the past in ways that both mark and mask a past events. In the McKinney case, contests over his culpability emerged against a backdrop of loss, both epistemological and affective, generating a projective reckoning with Shepard’s death in ways that enabled a politically transformational mourning process.

Social justice themes permeate the social studies, history, civics, and current events curricula. The purpose of this paper is to examine how non-fiction trade books represented lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) individuals and issues.

Trade books published after 2000 and intended for middle grades (5-8) and high school (9-12) students were analyzed.

Findings included main characters’ demography, sexuality, and various ancillary elements, such as connection to LGBTQ community, interactions with non-LGBTQ individuals, the challenges and contested terrain that LGBTQ individuals must traverse, and a range of responses to these challenges. Publication date, intended audience, and subgenre of non-fiction – specifically, memoir, expository, and historical text – added nuance to findings. Viewed broadly, the books generally engaged in exceptionalism, a historical misrepresentation, of one singular character who was a gay or lesbian white American. Diverse sexualities, races, ethnicities, and contexts were largely absent. Complex resistance structures were frequent and detailed.

This research contributes to previous scholarship exploring LGBTQ-themed fiction for secondary students and close readings of secondary level non-fiction trade books.

This paper examines the conditions under which states include sexual orientation as a protected status in hate crime policy over the course of 25 years. Previous research in this area has generally focused on the passage of either general hate crime statutes longitudinally or the inclusion of sexual orientation in hate crime legislation via cross-sectional analysis. Moreover, previous work in this area tends to concentrate on two types of factors affecting policy passage: (1) structural factors such as social disorganization and economic vitality, and (2) political characteristics including governor’s political party and the makeup of the state legislature. We argue that a strong LGBT social movement organizational presence may also influence LGBT hate crime policy passage. Using an event history analysis, we test how state-level social movement organizational mobilization, as well as the state-level political context, affect policy passage from 1983 to 2008. Our findings indicate that political opportunities, including political instability and government ideology, matter for the passage of anti-gay hate crime policy. We also find evidence to support political mediation, as the interaction between social movement organizational presence and Democrats in the state legislature affect policy passage.

This chapter provides evidence that the Stonewall Inn riots were the foundation for a legacy of empowerment and improvements in the civil and political rights of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) community in the United States. Increased protections in the United States and globally are needed to fully integrate LGBT individuals into society. The next phase of this work will examine how the failure to extend equitable civil and political rights to LGBT individuals has led to continued stigma and discrimination which, in turn, is associated with a host of LGBT health disparities ranging from HIV to suicide to substance use. Future research will also identify ways to reduce these inequities.

For more than a decade, public opinion polls have shown that nearly 80% of Americans support hate crime legislation as a response to violence committed because of the victim's race, color, religion, and sexual orientation. Americans' widespread support for legislation aimed at bias-motivated crimes is not matched by the federal and state efforts devoted to responding to such crimes. This chapter describes the myriad factors contributing to America's limited police and prosecutorial response to hate crimes. After a discussion of the patchwork of state and federal legislation aimed at hate crimes, the chapter analyzes the substantial legislative and administrative structures that hamper the enforcement of hate crime law in the United States.

Systematic oppression and marginalization of queer (sometimes also referred to as LGBTQ) people has affected all aspects of U.S. society, including education at all levels. Despite the heavy policing of queer sexuality and gender both inside and outside higher education, these aspects of identity have been overlooked in educational policy. This paper discusses federal educational policy that affects queer students, faculty, and staff in higher education.

Discussion in this paper is informed by three guiding tenets: sexuality is both central and marginal to queer identities; trans* identities are both inclusive of and beyond those who are in the process of confirming their gender identity through hormones and/or surgery; discussion of educational policy must acknowledge queer theory’s utility and nonutility.

The status of queer people in colleges and universities is reviewed first. Then, challenges of developing policy to address queer issues are acknowledged, while also illustrating recent policy changes and judicial rulings that have positive implications for queer people in higher education.

The paper concludes by identifying remaining gaps and recommendations for future policy development, including the need for federal nondiscrimination laws that cover sexual and gender minorities and restructuring policies for queer inclusion.

Purpose – The overall purpose of this chapter is to discuss what is known about serious forms of bias violence, obstacles to studying bias violence, and how alternative theoretical and methodological approaches can advance our understanding of bias violence in the twenty-first century.

Design/methodology/approach – Following a review of the literature, the applicability of identity fusion theory for explaining bias violence is considered and applied to the anti-racial mass shooting at an historically Black church in Charleston, South Carolina. Data come from an innovative open-source project known as the United States Extremist Crime Database.

Findings – Drawing from identity fusion theory, information from open-source data on the Charleston church shooting suggests that the perpetrator was a highly fused individual who perceived African Americans as a threat toward his social identity group and committed an act of extreme behavior (i.e., bias homicide) as a means for stabilizing his self-views.

Originality/value – This chapter builds upon prior studies of bias violence by demonstrating how (1) publicly available open sources (e.g., court documents and media reports) may be systematically compiled and used as reliable data for studying serious forms of bias violence, and (2) the use of social psychological theories, specifically identity fusion theory, can help to explain the role of personal and group identities in discriminatory violence.

New Mexico (NM) students live complex intersectional lives; thus, drama is a tool that grants students the keys to understanding social justice, resistance, and, most importantly, healing. For drama to be used as a social justice tool, elements of the outside world need to be brought into the classroom. The following uses Teatro Campesino as a radical educational framework that recenters the lost voices of NM students. The intersectional nature of NM students presents a unique opportunity for teachers where drama and Teatro Campesino thrive as its aides in dismantling the education system as a way to provide more equity in the classroom. The classroom space should celebrate and discuss all social locations and struggles. But the space has been hostile, and taboo subjects such as mental health and suicide are supposed to be left at the door, but this is not possible. Using drama, specifically as a learning tool and aspect of the classroom grants students the opportunity to learn more about themselves and others through a safe space. NM youth are susceptible to a lot, including, but not limited to historical trauma, high levels of stress, and a variety of commitments that extend well beyond the classroom. Because of these added aspects of student life, being a K–12 student in New Mexico is different from where the majority of the curriculum comes from. Thus, using Teatro Campesino and the musical Dear Evan Hansen is not only appropriate to bring into the classroom but also critical for equity to prevail.

To identify the Obama administration’s policy responsiveness to the (African) American LGBT communities.

Theory development and content analysis.

Civic universalism, as a theory, can explain President Obama’s evolution on his support for marriage rights for same-sex couples. Obama employed the concept of e pluribus unum in his many approaches to LGBT responsive politics.

To date, theoretical development within the social sciences of LGBT policy responsiveness is limited.

Very little is written on the subject of LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered) politics in the 21st century. The study of the LGBT experience generally has been devoid of political variables because of a lack of attention toward LGBT issues, until recently, in national political party agendas. In this chapter, we review some of the contours of the LGBT community’s fight for political recognition in the United States as a precursor to the election and reelection of President Obama. Drawing parallels with presidential responsiveness toward Blacks in their quest for rights, we examine the Obama administration’s LGBT public policy initiatives as administrative policy and programs. We conclude by identifying new areas of research to explore on LGBT politics.

The paper addresses the issue of contrasting constructions of social problems. Using “hate crime” as an example, we focus on portraits of the problem in the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) Uniform Crime Reports and in the New York Times. The analysis illumines how fundamental contrasts in representations of hate arise from differences in the underlying, and institutionalized, sense-making practices of scorekeeping and storytelling. We conclude by discussing the larger implications of the findings for further development of the theoretical model of “dialogical constructionism.”