by Kenneth Jost

About the author: Kenneth Jost is a staff writer for CQ Researcher, a weekly news and research report published by Congressional Quarterly, Inc.

St. Paul, Minnesota, enacted a local hate crime ordinance in 1982. Instead of adopting the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) penalty-enhancement model [which provided increased penalties for crimes in which the victim was selected because of race, religion, or sexual orientation], however, St. Paul decided to create a new offense: bias-motivated disorderly conduct. Under the ordinance, anyone who “places on public or private property a symbol, object, appellation, characterization or graffiti” that “arouses anger, alarm or resentment in others on the basis of race, color, creed or religion” was guilty of the misdemeanor offense of disorderly conduct. The city amended the law in 1989 to specifically include a burning cross or...