NOTE: Today we start an intermittent feature highlighting CSUSB faculty who are mentioned in the news. Faculty, if you are interviewed and quoted by news media, or if your work has been cited, and you have an online link to the article or video, let us know. Contact us at news@csusb.edu.
Brian Levin, professor of criminal justice and director of CSUSB’s Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, made it into the news twice this week.
On Oct. 22, 2016, The Kansas City Star quoted him for an article about an alleged domestic terrorism plot to kill Somali immigrants in southwest Kansas, citing the incident as part of a growing concern that anti-government extremists are starting to target Muslim Americans.
The article cited the center’s study that found that hate crimes against Muslims Americans are at the highest level since the period immediately following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Levin said the increase is due to a combination of factors, including an escalation of terrorist attacks in the United States and overseas and the existence of a galvanized national political movement that uses anti-Muslim rhetoric.
“We have charismatic political leaders unifying and coalescing this,” he said. “The alt-right didn’t start this, nor did Donald Trump. But they certainly have amplified it and mainstreamed it.”
That article can be found at “More in militia movement finding new target: American Muslims.”
Also on Oct. 22, 2016, Levin wrote a piece for The Huffington Post that updated that study.
“Our recent 20-state study, released last month, and to be presented at the American Society of Criminology next month, found small overall hate crime increases punctuated by significant spikes that vary by location, offense type, significant event dates and targeted group. The data relied primarily and preferably on official law enforcement figures,” Levin wrote.
“Since the report was published we have new official police data from Maryland, one of the nation’s most diverse states, with one of the highest percentages of Jews, Muslims and African-Americans. Maryland was also the first state in the nation to systematically record hate crime statistics.”
That article may be read online at “Hate crime in U.S. survey up 6 percent; but anti-Muslim rise 89 percent, NYC up 24 percent so far in 2016.”