Here's a link to the U.S. Code (Title 18, section 245) covering this sort of crime.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/ht...5----000-.html
In short, it can only be a hate crime if the following rights are interfered with:
Quote:
(b) Whoever, whether or not acting under color of law, by force or threat of force willfully injures, intimidates or interferes with, or attempts to injure, intimidate or interfere with— (1) any person because he is or has been, or in order to intimidate such person or any other person or any class of persons from— (A) voting or qualifying to vote, qualifying or campaigning as a candidate for elective office, or qualifying or acting as a poll watcher, or any legally authorized election official, in any primary, special, or general election;
(B) participating in or enjoying any benefit, service, privilege, program, facility, or activity provided or administered by the United States;
(C) applying for or enjoying employment, or any perquisite thereof, by any agency of the United States;
(D) serving, or attending upon any court in connection with possible service, as a grand or petit juror in any court of the United States;
(E) participating in or enjoying the benefits of any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance; or
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I think your understanding of what qualifies as a "hate crime" is incorrectly expansive. There might be a case under "E" since schools receive federal financial assistance if you want to argue the act was interfering with the black students' rights to attend the school. However, the counter argument to that is that the activity interfered with was hanging out under a tree... an activity it'd be hard to argue receives federal assistance.
Further, if you were able to make that case, you could probably make a case that the Jena 6 committed a hate crime as well.
I don't consider myself to be an expert at all regarding civil rights legislation -- especially the criminal type. I'm pretty up to speed on 42 U.S.C. 1983 though. I understand based on about 5 minutes of research that this is the big daddy of the federal hate crimes statutes. It seems that the U.S. Attorney has come to essentially the same conclusion I have, so I can't be too far off.