NOTE: 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, please let us know. Contact us at news@csusb.edu.
CSUSB’s Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism referenced in article about false police reports
The Crime Report
July 7, 2020
False reporting cases have not been frequently studied, making this type of hate crime sometimes difficult to understand.
FBI data shows that in 2017 there were 7,175 hate crimes reported. Of those, The Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino released a follow-up report noting that they found only 17 false hate crime reports in 2017 and “six others that they deemed to be unclear whether they were true or false,” ABC News detailed in 2019.
However frequent or infrequent that data may say false 911 calls take place, many lawmakers are taking a stand against this form of hate and aggression.
Read the whole article at "Will charge in Central Park incident could make people 'think twice' about false police reporting?"
CSUSB history professor discusses the importance of Palestinian unity
Press TV
July 6, 2020
David Yaghoubian, CSUSB history professor, appeared on Press TV to discuss the call by the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas for Palestinian unity in opposition to Israel’s planned annexation of portions of the West Bank.
“Palestinian unity in both Gaza as well as the West Bank, and including the large Palestinian diaspora, is absolutely critical in combating these latest designs of the Zionists and the Trump regime to steal more Palestinian land than has already been stolen since 1948,” Yaghoubian said. “We are down to 22 percent of historic Palestine in the West Bank and if these current Israeli annexation plans go through, Israel expects to annex another 30 percent.”
Watch the segment at "Hamas calls for unity against Israeli annexation."
USA Today
July 7, 2020
In an article about hate crimes against people of color, Brian Levin, CSUSB criminal justice professor and director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, was quoted about hate crimes being underreported and how racist rhetoric can fuel violence.
Though FBI Hate Crime Statistics showed a slight dip from 2017 to 2018, incidents of person-directed physical assaults (rather than property damage or vandalism) were up both year over year and compared to the past decade, Levin said.
Levin also said election years can be particularly violent for minority groups when lawmakers target them as scapegoats.
“When leaders make statements, it actually correlates with increases in hate crimes,” said Levin. “When sociopolitical landscape gets divisive, often the group that is singled out for disdain is where we see an increase in hate crimes against that group.”
Read the article at “Black Americans report hate crimes, violence in wake of George Floyd protests and Black Lives Matter gains.”
Lead Stories
July 8, 2020
Brian Levin, criminal justice professor and director of the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, was quoted in an article about the false claim that the FBI said teachers are the number one occupation of Antifa activists. Levin said he has found no such FBI report on Antifa.
“The FBI does not categorize ‘Antifa’ as an organization, although in some localities there are informal local networks. Nor, has the FBI or media, released any public reports, to our knowledge, that enumerate ‘membership’ in Antifa or more specifically a breakdown by occupation,” he said. “However, some of America’s most outspoken apparent Antifa adherents or supporters are educators who have appeared on national television over the years on shows like Meet the Press and Tucker Carlson. These include Yvette Felarca, a middle school teacher from Berkeley, who was sentenced to community service for striking an alleged Nazi at a violent 2016 Sacramento rally and a college lecturer named Mark Bray, who is the author of the ‘Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook,’ a popular book in the movement.”
Read the article at “Fact Check: The FBI Did NOT Say Teachers Are The Number One Occupation of Antifa Activists.”
The Mercury News
July 9, 2020
Brian Levin, criminal justice professor and director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at Cal State San Bernardino, was interviewed in an article regarding a high school assistant principal for the California School for the Deaf in Riverside, who is under investigation after a 2006 photo was discovered of him giving a Nazi-style salute and who belonged to Kappa Gama, a fraternity recently suspended for anti-Semitic activities.
The fact that the deaf have been discriminated against by hate groups — an estimated 17,000 deaf Germans were sterilized by the Nazis and 2,000 deaf children were killed by lethal injection or starvation as “mercy killings” — doesn’t make the deaf incapable of bigotry themselves, according to Levin.
“Hate can be an equal-opportunity offender,” he said.
According to Levin, the fact that the salute originally dates to ancient Rome and was later used in the United States to salute the flag in the late 19th century as the Bellamy salute, doesn’t insulate Kappa Gamma from charges of racism.
“Whatever they say the motive was, it looks a lot like the ‘sieg heil’ salute,” he said.
Similarly, the fraternity’s ceremonial robes resemble those of the Ku Klux Klan, even if they have additional decorations such as the skull over the chest, Levin said.
The fraternity’s symbols and gestures are close enough to the Klan’s that “any reasonable person who’s not an analyst like I am would be offended,” Levin said.
Read the article at “California School for the Deaf official under investigation for 2006 photo of Nazi-style salute.”
These news clips and others may be viewed at “In the Headlines.”