Hate Crimes Task Force
Initiated in 2017, Jones Day's Hate Crimes Task Force comprises a team of lawyers, including two former U.S. Attorneys and other former prosecutors, who support and represent the victims of hate crimes, as well as their family members. The team works closely with local law enforcement, civil rights organizations, and agencies and departments at various levels of government.
Among the many projects we have successfully taken on are the following:
- Representing the family of a member of the U.S. military who was targeted and killed because of his race;
- Defending members of the Charlottesville City Counsel who were sued in their individual capacities as a result of their efforts to address iconography;
- Advising individual cities that were seeking to quell the use of unlawful private militias and unauthorized paramilitary activity at public demonstrations; and
- Representing plaintiffs in civil litigation relating to the firebombing of their church by members of White Lives Matter because of the church’s plan to host a drag show event.
Jones Day also provided educational materials on the legal parameters of peaceful protest in cities across the country.
On October 27, 2018, 11 members of three Jewish congregations who had assembled for services at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh were killed by a gunman motivated by hate ideologies; the massacre was the largest loss of life in an anti-Semitic crime in U.S. history. In the months that followed, Jones Day spearheaded the creation of the Eradicate Hate Global Summit to drive solutions for preventing hate-fueled identity-based violence of all kinds, whether based on religion, race, ethnicity, national origin, gender, gender expression, immigration status, or any other identity characteristic. Since 2019, with the steadfast support of scores of Jones Day lawyers and staff from 14 offices around the globe as well as material financial support from the Jones Day Foundation, Eradicate Hate has become the largest assembly of anti-hate experts in the world, spearheading anti-hate work across countries and in sectors that include business, government, technology, academia, journalism, medicine, law, civil society, advertising, and communications. As the world's largest assembly of survivors of identity-based violence, Eradicate Hate embeds survivors' voices and perspectives in all aspects of our work and provides an international platform enabling survivors to further their individual efforts.
Eradicate Hate provides year-round programming and annually hosts an in-person conference that draws hundreds of the world's top experts and an audience of more than 1,000 people. It is the only gathering in the world that employs a model designed to drive change through: (1) an in-person assembly of international experts; (2) discussion focused on the identification of specific "deliverables"; (3) the formation of interdisciplinary working groups to achieve those deliverables; and (4) the establishment of a one-year period during which the working groups analyze their progress for presentation at the next annual meeting.
Eradicate Hate is now an independent organization with a full-time staff, but Jones Day lawyers continue to play prominent roles at the conferences as moderators, panelists, and summit ambassadors. Throughout the year, our lawyers support Eradicate Hate's working groups in the development of practical actions intended to combat hate-fueled violence. These actions have included:
- The formation of a toolkit for preventing the weaponization of hate-crime trials by pro se defendants;
- The creation of a national pro bono network providing legal support to victims and their families;
- The establishment of international networks of mental health and law enforcement professionals trained in the latest techniques for treating the perpetrators of hate-fueled violence;
- Curating projects between researchers and tech companies for reducing online recruitment by organizations promoting violence;
- The formation of a Sports Working Group that involves all of the major leagues in the United States and whose Game Plan was launched at the United Nations; and
- The establishment of a Youth Summit that is now being replicated in cities across the United States.
The next annual gathering will take place September 15–17, 2025.
You can learn more about Eradicate Hate here.
Eradicate Hate Global Summit - 2024 Highlights
After she was shot in 2011, former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords began an arduous fight to again be able to walk and speak. At the 2024 Eradicate Hate Global Summit she found the words and the students the whom she met found inspiration.
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