(The Center Square) – The Washington State Office of the Attorney General has launched a taxpayer-funded hotline in three counties that would allow residents, including foreign nationals and illegal immigrants, to report U.S. citizens for engaging in legally protected speech and activity, in addition to hate crimes.
The launch of the hate crimes and bias incidents hotline in King, Clark and Spokane counties occurred almost exactly a year after The Center Square reported that Oregon’s hate crime and bias incident hotline mostly tracks legal activities.
Referring to both legal crimes and protected speech, the hotline’s website says “these incidents have a devastating and long-lasting impact on individuals, families, and communities, making people feel unwelcome or unsafe where they live.”
Although crimes can be reported to the hotline, the website says it is a nonemergency reporting line and that those experiencing immediate danger or an active emergency should call 9-11. The website also says the purpose of the hotline is to support those who contact them and “inform Washington’s legislature, governor, law enforcement, and community about the extent of the problem.”
At the same time, the hotline does not collect any information about the person reporting the incident. Nor does it provide legal advice.
According to the website, a bias incident is a “hostile expression of animus … expressing an opinion of hate or bias in a rude, unfriendly, or aggressive manner. A bias incident is an incident that does not rise to the level of a crime or criminal act.”
The hotline was authorized by the state Legislature in 2024 via Senate Bill 5427 sponsored by Sen. Javier Valdez, D-Seattle. The bill would have originally allowed people reporting to the hotline to potentially receive up to $2,000, but that provision was later removed.
Like with the AGO’s task force on domestic violent extremism, the hotline encompasses both activities that fall under the state’s hate crime definition as well as speech or activity protected by the First Amendment.
“When immigrant families in my network face verbal harassment that makes them afraid to send their children to school, when transgender people of color experience daily microaggressions that chip away at their humanity, when our elders are told to ‘go back where they came from’ — these are acts of violence,” Washington Immigrant Solidarity Network Executive Director Catalina Velasquez said in an AGO news release. “The hotline creates space for these experiences to be documented, believed, and responded to with culturally competent, trauma-informed care.”
This year, the state Legislature broadened the definition of a hate crime to include crimes committed “in part or the whole” due to someone’s perception.
Meanwhile, the AGO’s task force has struggled to define “domestic violent extremism” in an effort to combat it from a public perspective, which would ostensibly include illegal activities and activities protected by the First Amendment.
When The Center Square reached out to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression for comment, Director of Public Advocacy Aaron Terr wrote in an email that “state governments, let alone their top law enforcement officials, should not be encouraging citizens to report speech that is fully protected by the First Amendment. Bias reporting systems have a well-documented history on college campuses of chilling open debate by soliciting reports about students and faculty who express controversial opinions on social or political issues. Now, that same misguided concept is infiltrating city and state governments, threatening to create a similar climate of fear and self-censorship among the general public. The danger is often compounded by a lack of clarity about what the governments do with the information they collect, and by the involvement of law enforcement.”
He also wrote that “it’s especially troubling that the Attorney General’s press release promoting the bias incident hotline equates ‘microaggressions’ with ‘acts of violence’ and suggests the information collected will shape law enforcement strategies. That’s a serious category error. Speech isn’t violence. Of course, the law rightly prohibits threats, intimidation, targeted harassment, and actual violence. Those acts can and should be reported to the police. But the First Amendment draws a sharp line between unlawful conduct and speech that merely causes offense. The last thing an attorney general should be doing is soliciting reports about controversial artwork and Halloween costumes. These hotlines are a betrayal of America’s core commitment to free expression.”
