Town Hall on Hate Crimes and Extremism

Please join State Representative Noah Arbit for this informative, timely event which will feature a panel conversation with Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel and world-renowned scholar Dr. Cynthia Miller Idriss, Founding Director of the Polarization, Extremism, Research and Innovation Lab at American University and bestselling author of Hate in the Homeland.

What is the aim of the event?
The event will focus on educating attendees on how to identify and report hate crimes, how Michigan is working to tackle hate crimes and extremism, including the recent passage of my Michigan Hate Crime Act, other legislation in the works, from a law enforcement perspective through Attorney General Nessel’s Hate Crimes and Domestic Terrorism Unit, at universities, as well as strategies and tools to combat hate, extremism, radicalization that we can implement locally in our community.

Things are sensitive right now, politically, and these are weighty topics. How will the event handle politics/partisanship?
This is a formal event that I am hosting in my official capacity as State Representative, not a political or campaign event. Dana Nessel is appearing in her official capacity as Michigan Attorney General, and Dr. Miller-Idriss’ organization is non-partisan. While the panel will touch on politics in broad, general terms in so far as explaining how an individual’s ideological worldviews, if radicalized, can lead to targeted  and hate-based violence; and stress the important role politicians have in dissuading these phenomena by avoiding inflammatory rhetoric, the subject matter of the town hall is intended to be and will be general in nature, and certainly non-partisan.