Homefront: Hate Crimes

Guest Panelists

Lavera Brown is Executive Director of the NAACP Pittsburgh. From 1985-94, she was Director of Volunteer Services for the United Way of Allegheny County. Brown has won several awards for her volunteer contributions to community organizations, including the Urban League, the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, the United Cerebral Palsy Community, and the YWCA USA, which gave her its Racial Justice Award. She co-founded the Pittsburgh Coalition to Counter Hate Groups in 1979 and still serves as its Co-Chair. From 1997-99, Brown helped organize countywide Unity Rallies.

Billy Hileman is an openly gay HIV+ science teacher in the Pittsburgh Public Schools. A former intern for Representative Barney Frank, Hileman was national co-chair of the 1993 March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay, and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation. Since 1994, Hileman has been the founder and publisher of Planet Q, a Pittsburgh-based lesbian, gay and bisexual newspaper. He has been a local community activist for many years, founding CRY OUT! ACT UP! in 1987 and served as a member of Citizens for Police Accountability during the fight for Pittsburgh's Citizen Police Review Board.

David Shtulman has been the Executive Director of the Pittsburgh Chapter of the America Jewish Committee since 1997. In such capacity Shtulman facilitates interfaith dialogues among Jews, Christians and Muslims as well as a Black-Jewish Dialogue on racial injustice. He has worked with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission Inter-Agency Task Force on Civil Tension and the Allegheny County Violence Prevention Task Force. Under the auspices of the FBI Adopt-A-School Program, Shtulman has developed and implemented classroom lessons on hate crimes for high school students.

Ann M. Van Dyke is Assistant to the Director of Education and Community Services of the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission. In addition to monitoring hate group activity in Pennsylvania, she assists communities and schools that are dealing with hate crimes, hate groups or with the acts of intolerance of everyday people. Van Dyke has been certified by the U.S. Department of Justice to conduct hate crimes training for police. She has been interviewed by NBC's 20/20, A&E Investigative Reports, National Public Radio, the Washington Post and The New York Times.