Stamping Out Hate in South Carolina's Lowcountry, A Collaborative Approach to Educating, Responding, and Documenting Hate Crime in the Lowcountry and Beyond

Judging by all available data, hate and antisemitism are on the rise throughout the United States, and disproportionately so in South Carolina. Our state's criminal code makes no special designation for hate crimes, and most municipal codes don't either. This status leaves community-based organizations like Charleston Jewish Federation responsible for the work of gathering information and data regarding antisemitic incidents. We are also charged with the responsibility of ensuring that our schools, law enforcement, and our government officials understand what antisemitism is and help them respond to antisemitism appropriately.

With help from the Bureau of Justice Assistance, we are proposing an expansion of our existing efforts to track, respond to, and educate about issues of antisemitism and all forms of hate.

1) An expansion of antisemitism trainings for K-12 schools, workplaces, law enforcement agencies, and local government.
The creation of an annual Local Law Enforcement training summit, offering professional credits for The offering of workplace antisemitism/implicit bias trainings.
Expansion of the number of trained antisemitism facilitators in the Charleston, Berkley, and Dorchester County area.
K-12 student, teacher, and parent antisemitism trainings, both proactively and in response to antisemitic incident.

2) A marketing and awareness campaign educating the local public about antisemitism and promoting the use of our joint incident reporting form (in collaboration with ADL and SCN), while expanding the form to include a hotline. An ongoing digital and print ad campaign in the largest local newspaper. An ongoing social media campaign to include paid advertising. The creation of a Stamp Out Hate town hall, convening all Charleston-based communities targeted by hate and all local law enforcement to listen to community concerns about hate incidents and provide resources for reporting and responding to these incidents.

This expansion of services and corresponding public information campaign will ramp up progressively over the course of three years as our capacity increases. An award from the BJA for this grant proposal would permanently expand the capacity of our area organizations to respond to antisemitism and produce a replicable model for similar communities around the state and nation.