Responding to my morning post, a reader kindly sends the link to PSU's Report Hate page, which features an image that must replicate the one in the signs. Michelangelo and Dr. Seuss must be turning in their graves at the appropriation--and fusion--of their imagery. Papa Smurf may be a bit befuddled, too.

Meanwhile, a reader who is also an English professor writes with some reflections on the language of the nationwide anti-hate campaign:

One thing I've been thinking about for a while now, probably because I'm an English teacher. When and why did the speech-code and diversity crowds substitute the verb "hate" for the noun "hatred," a step that's all but obliterated what seems to me to have been a perfectly good way to differentiate between these two words? I've puzzled through this, trying to think of a reason why "hate" is better than "hatred," but I can't figure it out. Is it because one-syllable words have more impact than two-syllable words? Does hatred sound fussy or old-fashioned? Obviously, saying hate instead of hatred opens up all sorts of rhyming possibilities at publicly-funded universities--but is it something more than that? Any thoughts?

UPDATE: John Rosenberg, author of Discriminations, writes,

Interesting question (why hate instead of hatred), interesting answer. I think youíre on the right track. Its victory must have something to do with the fact that ìhate,î unlike ìhatred,î can be a noun (filled with hate), a verb (I hate you), or an adjective (hate speech, although arguably ìhate speechî is a noun). Of those, the verbiness, the association with action, is probably the most important. Hate Speech, the typical target, is thus viewed more as a speech act than as a vessel holding some particular content. Turning to the PSU poster, urging someone to ìReport Hatredî would make some overly sensitive souls squeamish (and properly so); they might be somewhat bothered if there were enough remaining residue of their former liberalism to be troubled over being asked to snoop around and turn people in because of certain thoughts and attitudes they entertained privately and silently. But ask that same person to report ìHate,î and there are likely to be no such reservations because ìhateî is so closely associated with the reality or maybe just possibility of action. Itís nipping potential violence in the bud.

We should be careful ourselves, however, about making too much of this speech-action dichotomy, lest we talk ourselves into a position where we canít defend affirmative action bake sales because theyíre not ìspeech.î (Post on this, based on FIREís press release etc., coming shortly).

UPDATE: Maurice Black points out that it is technically correct to use "hate" as a noun, and gives the definition from Webster's Collegiate Dictionary:

Main Entry: hate
Pronunciation: 'hAt
Function: noun
Usage: often attributive
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English hete; akin to
Old High German haz hate, Greek kEdos care
Date: before 12th century
1 a : intense hostility and aversion usually deriving from fear, anger, or sense of injury
b : extreme dislike or antipathy : (had a great hate of hard work)
2 : an object of hatred (a generation whose finest hate had been big business -- F. L. Paxson)

Feeling bold, I went to the PSU web site you linked, and clicked on the 2001-2002 Hate Activity Report, which alternately employs two phrases--"hate activity" and "acts of intolerance" (these are identical?)--to refer to everything from incidents "in which the target(s) were slightly concerned or annoyed about the incident to those where the target(s) felt physically threatened and feared for their safety" (i.e., there's now no difference between annoyance and assault). This goes a long way toward confirming what both you and John said--that using the verb in place of all the other forms of the word collapses states of mind and being into actions. The more grammatically precise phrases "hateful activity" or even "intolerant acts" sound too qualified, even waffling, as if an adjective necessarily weakens its noun.