Partners Against Hate maintains a state-by-state database of hate-crime statistics and hate-crime laws.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has a state-by-state map of identified hate groups. The center says that in 2012 there were 1,007 hate groups operating throughout the United States, an increase of more than 50 percent since 2000.

An April 8, 2009, story in The Washington Post, “Some Link Economy With Spate Of Killings,” examines links between the recession and 57 killings in eight mass-murder crimes over the course of a single month last spring.

Several high-profile hate crimes have made headlines in 2009, confirming fears for some that bias attacks are on the rise. They include the April killing of three Pittsburgh policemen by a right-wing extremist and the shooting in June at the Holocaust Museum in Washington by an elderly white supremacist that left a security guard dead.

In April 2009, the Department of Homeland Security released a report detailing concerns about a rise in right-wing extremism. In The New York Times columnist Charles Blow parses the figures and uses a graphic to illustrate the dependence of right-wing hate groups on recruits with military training.

The HomeSchool Association of California publishes a newspaper and offers legislative and legal advocacy.

Michael L. Coulter is a professor of humanities and political science at Grove City College in Grove City, Pa. He is the author of “Home School Legal Defense Association” in the Encyclopedia of American Religion and Politics.

Read an Associated Press story posted March 4, 2009, at USAToday.com about homeschooling during the economic downturn.

Read an Aug. 6, 2009, article from The Economist about the reasons families are choosing to homeschool their children.