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Estimated Cost of Hate Crimes to Phoenix Residents in 2022 Between $39 and $160 Million, Reports Bard Center for the Study of Hate and Anti-Defamation League’s Desert Region

The Bard Center for the Study of Hate (BCSH), in partnership with the ADL Desert Region, has released a new report: The Societal Impacts of Hate Crimes: A Case Study. What emerges from this study is a staggering cost–the estimate for the “hate tax” on Phoenix residents from hate crime in 2022 is between $39 million and $160 million.

Building on the groundbreaking work of Bard Associate Professor of Economics Michael Martell, and his 2023 analysis of the “Economic Costs of Hate Crimes,” the ADL Desert Region’s GRACE Committee (Government Relations Advocacy and Community Engagement Committee) sought to quantify the costs of hate crimes in Phoenix for the year in 2022. Using Martell’s model, and assisted by BCSH summer intern Mimla Wardak, the GRACE committee reached out to leaders in Phoenix to gather data, but also to discuss the various costs associated with hate crime, such as the need to use money that could otherwise have supported community projects on infrastructure security instead.

This joint project, led by BCSH director Kenneth Stern and ADL- Desert Region’s GRACE Committee chair Bob Braudy, was designed as a model that other communities in the US and abroad can use too.

In a joint statement, Stern and Braudy emphasized the broader implications of the report. Stern and Braudy said, “Hate crimes reverberate in any community, and we think of the moral costs associated with them, as well as the legal implications. But calculating and underscoring the societal costs is a critical project, not only to remind people of the financial costs of hate crimes, but also highlighting the things that community groups and others might otherwise accomplish to benefit everyone if millions didn’t have to be diverted because of the costs of hate crimes.”

The next step in Phoenix involves the use of the report for meetings with community groups, government officials, and others, to plan together how to reduce these costs.

BCSH is willing to help other communities design their own assessments, and follow-up plans. Contact BCSH director Kenneth Stern at [email protected].

Post Date: 04-11-2025

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Bard College Hosts Symposium on PCB Contamination and “Bomb Trains” Threatening the Hudson/Mahicantuck River on April 11

Bard College will host “The Fate of the River,” a symposium centered on two major environmental threats facing the Hudson/Mahicantuck River. The symposium will take place on Friday, April 11 from 10 am to 4 pm in Olin Hall at Bard College. “The Fate of the River” will call attention to high levels of PCB contamination in the river and “bomb trains”—overloaded freight trains carrying Bakken shale oil and unidentified chemicals along the eroding west bank of the river. General Electric’s dumping of toxic material in the river over 30 years and its subsequent clean-up between 2009 and 2015 that did not meet agreed upon environmental benchmarks has resulted in the river’s high levels of PCB contamination. Continuing PCB contamination causes human health risks, ongoing extinction and disease to fish and wildlife, and damages river ecosystems, wetlands, ground water, and soil. The other symposium topic is the environmental threat of “Bomb Trains” carrying highly explosive fossil fuels, which if derailed, spell catastrophe in impacted communities.

The purpose of this symposium is to facilitate public discussion informed by science, environmental law, and best citizen advocacy practices and to explore how members of the community can effectively address and work together to curtail these threats. Morning presentations will be followed by an afternoon panel and public discussion. Members of the Hudson Valley community are welcome to attend for all or part of the symposium.

Key speakers include writer, filmmaker and adventurer, Jon Bowermaster; Associate Director of Government Affairs at Riverkeeper Jeremy Cherson MS ’15, who is working to advance Riverkeeper’s priorities in Albany and Washington; Senior Staff Attorney at Food & Water Watch and Bard faculty member Erin Doran; public health physician and Director of the Institute for Health and the Environment at SUNY Albany David O. Carpenter; and lawyer Florence Murray, whose practice specializes in traumatic brain injuries and wrongful death actions, civil rights violations with severe injuries, trucking collisions, and railroad derailments—such as the one in East Palestine, Ohio.

“The Fate of the River” symposium is the first in a series of public discussions entitled Environmental Injustice Across the Americas that focuses on state-sanctioned pollution, the poisoning of water, destruction of the commons, and the fight for justice. “The Fate of the River” is cosponsored by Bard College’s Human Rights Program, Center for Civic Engagement, Center for Environmental Policy, Environmental Studies, and the Office of Sustainability.

“The Fate of the River” Symposium Schedule
Friday, April 11, 2025
Olin Hall, Bard College

10:00–10:10 am Introduction to “The Fate of the River” symposium
10:10–10: 35 am Introduction and screening of Jon Bowermaster’s film A Toxic Legacy about General Electric’s contamination of the Hudson/Mahicantuck River
10:40–11:00 am Jeremy Cherson, Associate Director of Government Affairs, Riverkeeper
11:05–11:25 am Erin Doran, Faculty in Environmental Law, Bard Center for Environmental Policy, and Senior Staff Attorney, Food & Water Watch
11:35–11:55 am David Carpenter, Director of Institute for Health and the Environment, SUNY Albany
Noon–1:00 pm LUNCH BREAK
1:05–1:25 pm Eli Dueker, Associate Professor of Environmental and Urban Studies, and Director of Bard Center for Environmental Sciences and Humanities
1:25–1:40 pm Introduction to and screening of Jon Bowermaster’s film Bomb Trains
1:40–2:00 pm Jeremy Cherson, Associate Director of Government Affairs, Riverkeeper
2:00–2:20 pm Florence Murray, Partner of Murray & Murray Law Firm, represents stakeholders affected by the toxic aftermath of the 2023 derailment of a Norfolk Southern train in East Palestine, Ohio
2:20–2:40 pm COFFEE BREAK
2:40–4:00 pm Panel and Public Discussion: “Next Steps Toward a Healthier
River”

Refreshments graciously provided by Taste Budds and Yum Yum of Red Hook.

Post Date: 03-31-2025