Charge School Bullies with Hate Crime

A 14-year-old black girl was threatened by a group of white teen boys armed with a hangman's noose Monday afternoon at Fred T. Foard High School in Newton, N.C., the Hickory (N.C.) Daily Record reported Monday.

The incident is under investigation by the Catawba County Schools and the Catawba County Sheriff's Office to determine the severity of the episode. Catawba County Schools Superintendent Glenn Barger told the Record he thinks the encounter was bullying, but was not a hate crime.

Read the story for yourself: http://www2.hickoryrecord.com/news/2012/jan/10/3/white-teens-noose-threaten-black-student-ar-1800296/ It doesn't get much more obvious hate crime than this.

These students need to be expelled from school, and to be charged as adults with a hate crime. If local authorities aren't willing to do so, then they should turn the case over to federal authorities.

Let's send a message to the like-minded, and to local authorities like Barger. It's 2012, not 1954. Racial intimidation has no place in our public schools!