The killing of Richard Collins III stands out among the hate crimes documented in statistics released this week by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Collins, a black Army lieutenant, was fatally stabbed by another college student just three days before he was set to graduate from Maryland’s Bowie State University in May 2017. His death was one of 15 hate-motivated killings that occurred in the United States last year and were reported to the FBI by the nation’s law-enforcement agencies.
Especially poignant for higher education was the location of Collins’s killing, on the campus of the University of Maryland at College Park. His was most likely the first hate-motivated killing on a college campus to be reported to the federal government by a higher-education institution since at least 2006….