"'It seems that it should be used based on its definition and not solely on any specific group. It doesn't matter who commits it, whether minority or not. All hate crimes should be dealt with the same.' - Ben Smoot, UVA Fourth Year.

'If only the dominant group can be guilty of hate crimes than we are already admitting that we have an unjust, dominance-based power structure in our society, and we should be talking about that. That being said, it is absolutely a hate crime to be acting out violently against random people.' - Dave Berzonsky, local musician.

'The question posed is quite broad in scope and assumes that there is some sort of general agreement on what we mean by 'minority,' or that we are familiar with hate crime legislation. It also seems to assume that there both is and should be a legal entity we label 'hate crime,' an issue on which there is much disagreement. - Michael A. Mallory, executive director, Ron Brown Scholar Program." (Question of the Week, The HooK, February 14, 2002)