A while back we told you about a group of high school boys who were charged in the fatal beating of Mexican immigrant, Luis Ramirez, in Shenandoah, PA. Two of the teens now face federal hate crime charges while three top police officers are charged with covering up evidence in the attack.

The white football players are now in jail although the most serious charges against them were thrown out by a jury. Federal prosecutors allege that’s because police officers who knew the boys (one was actually dating the mother of one of the accused teens) altered evidence in the case and coached the kids to lie. The officers now face numerous charges including obstruction of justice and extortion while the teens face life sentences if found guilty of hate crimes.

Federal authorities confess the charges are part of a larger effort to step up civil rights enforcement after nearly eight years of decreased hate crime prosecutions during the Bush era.

Thomas E. Perez, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said he was “shocked to see the downtick in prosecutions of hate crimes” during the Bush administration, adding “The Civil Rights Division is again open for business.”

The federal investigation into the Ramirez beating was initiated last year under President Bush. Notably, there were fewer hate crimes prosecuted during the Bush administration, hitting a low of 12 in 2006 before rising to 23 in 2008.

This month, a Government Accountability Office investigation concluded that from 2001 to 2007 there was a drop of enforcement of several major antidiscrimination and voting rights laws under the Bush administration compared with the Clinton administration.

What can you do?

• Have a debate at school about what punishments are appropriate for hate crime perpetrators
• Start an awareness campaign about hate crimes