An interesting case at my father's second alma mater, the University of California at Irvine:

IRVINE, Calif. (AP) - A protest wall erected by Arab students at the University of California-Irvine was burned down, and a Muslim group is calling for a hate crime investigation.

Campus police were investigating Thursday's incident as arson, but no arrests were made.

"Because of the ethnic and religious nature of the display and its sponsors, we urge campus police and the FBI to investigate this attack as a possible hate crime," said the Southern California office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

The 6-by-8-foot wall of cardboard boxes went up in flames after standing all week in the university's main quad, UCI spokesman Tom Vasich said. No injuries were reported.

If the wall were simply a matter of Muslim ritual or cultural this or that, "hate crimes" might be an appropriate description. However, it was a political statement. It is (or should be) protected by law, but to say that its destruction is inherently racist (or anti-Muslim) is to say that one must be racist to hold the political views that would dislike the wall. An opposing argument could then be made by the Jewish community that the wall itslf was a "hate symbol." Either your views and actions supporting your views on the Israel/Palestine conflict are representative of your live/hatred of the two religions/ethnicities involved or they aren't, you can't have it both ways.

[via Chris]