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.
Research by CSUSB professor cited in article about companies boosting prices while CEO salaries remain steady
Business Insider
June 13, 2021
Research by a CSUSB professor was cited in an article about Chipotle raising prices across its menu by about 4% in June, a move the company says was prompted by increased wages for workers, the news site reported.
The article also said, “Higher labor costs do eventually lead to higher prices for customers, but experts say the difference isn’t as stark as some might expect. A study from California State University San Bernardino found that for a minimum wage increase of 10%, food prices increase by just 0.36%.” (The study, “New Research on the Price Pass-Through Effects of the Minimum Wage,” by Daniel MacDonald, associate professor of economics, actually said the increase was about 0.46%.)
Read the complete article at “Companies like Chipotle are boosting prices, but CEOs multimillion dollar pay packages aren't getting any smaller.”
‘Goodwill’ moves by U.S. over Iran nuclear agreement are not enough, CSUSB professor says
Press TV
June 12, 2021
David Yaghoubian, CSUSB professor of history, was interviewed for a segment on the latest round of talks between Iran and world powers on reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal known as the known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). As part of the talks, Iran is calling on the United States to remove sanctions against it that were put in place by the Trump administration when it pulled the U.S. out of the agreement in 2018. Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman says the U.S' "selective" removal of some entities from its sanctions is not viewed as a sign of "goodwill" from Washington.
Yaghoubian agreed. “There is no goodwill. There is international law,” he said. “The United States has maintained illegal sanctions against Iran and has shown its animus toward the Iranian nation for decades. In the last three years through its ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions, not only has Iran lost up to a trillion dollars in revenue, but Iranians have suffered and died as a result of this ‘maximum pressure’ campaign, being denied critical medicines, especially at the height of a global pandemic.”
View the segment at “Iran sees no sign of ‘goodwill’ in ‘selective’ removal of entities from US blacklists.”
CSUSB professor calls for more uniform and comprehensive reporting of hate crimes
The Mercury News/Bay Area News Group
June 13, 2021
Rather than wait for new crimes against Asian Americans, community leaders push for more actions and policies to address root causes of racial animus, the newspaper reported.
Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, hopes the newly signed federal hate-crimes law and state racial-justice bureau will institute more uniform and comprehensive tracking of hate crimes, an effort he said was “abdicated” during the Trump administration.
The COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act specifically assigns an officer in the Justice Department to rapidly review hate-crimes reports, and orders the agency to issue guidance to law enforcement for establishing online reporting processes and expanding education campaigns. The new law also frees up federal grant dollars for state-operated hotlines and crime-reduction programs, and it authorizes courts to compel anyone put on supervised release for a hate-crime conviction to take part in education and community service.
“We need a whole-society approach because you’re not going to enforce your way out of this,” Levin said.
Read the complete article at “As laws tackle anti-Asian attacks, advocates push focus to the hate behind the crime.”
CSUSB professor interviewed for article on how a Colorado geophysicist was radicalized and participated in the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riot
Politico
June 11, 2021
Brian Levin, a criminal justice professor who runs the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, was interviewed for an article about the radicalization of a geophysicist from Colorado who faces charges related to his alleged involvement in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
Levin believes part of the solution has to include addressing extremism as a mental health issue. “I’m not saying that this is something that absolves people of criminal responsibility, but when you have broad reservoirs of grievance and unstable or emotionally vulnerable people who are undergoing stressors at the same time, it’s a recipe for radicalization,” he says.
Read the complete article at “The geophysicist who stormed the Capitol.”
CSUSB professor comments on federal charges filed against six SoCal residents linked to Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riot
CBS Los Angeles
June 10, 2021
Brian Levin, Cal State San Bernardino professor of criminal justice, was interviewed for a segment about six California men – four of whom identify as members of the anti-government Three Percenters movement and one of whom is a former police chief – who have been charged by the U.S. Department of Justice with crimes related to the breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
Their involvement at the Capitol riot, and the association of four of the accused with the Three Percenters movement, were things to keep an eye on, said Levin, who runs the Center for Hate and Extremism at CSUSB.
“What it shows you is the different kind of threat on the far right with regard to extremism,” he said. “Some are kind of over the top, and they met online and got coalesced with respect to the COVID restrictions then they moved on to ‘Stop The Steal’ and there’s this elastic reservoir of grievance.”
Levin said that growing discontent could cause trouble as extreme far right groups find themselves on the outside politically on a national scale and create local groups willing to organize and use violence.
“What we see is when certain extremist fringe movements find themselves outside of access that they think is possibly the mainstream, they tend to splinter and the loosest canons are the ones that fire and the ones that fire are the ones that do so on their own in smaller informal associations,” he said.
Read the report, and view the online video segment, at “Former La Habra Police Chief Alan Hostetter, 5 other SoCal men indicted on conspiracy charges related to Jan. 6 Capitol breach.”
Fatal attack of gay Virginia man could be prosecuted as a federal hate crime, CSUSB professor says
The Roanoke (Va.) Times
June 10, 2021
Brian Levin, director of CSUSB’s Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, was interviewed for an article on the reverberations that continued to spread June 10 from the Memorial Day killing of a gay Blacksburg man whose alleged attacker, a Virginia Tech football player, told police that he’d lashed out after discovering the person he met for a sexual encounter was not a woman.
Some said the details that emerged from a June 10 bond hearing show that Smith’s killing was motivated by a bias against gays.
“It certainly is one that could be investigated as a possible federal hate crime,” said Levin.
Ultimately, authorities will have to decide whether a case is more suitable for federal or state prosecution — although cases can be brought in both court systems without violating a defendant’s protection against double jeopardy, Levin said.
“The standard has been to yield to state prosecutions, but that has really changed over the past 10 years, particularly with the Obama administration,” he said.
In some cases, Levin said, a federal hate-crimes prosecution can go beyond what state laws cover.
For example, Congress expanded the definition of hate crimes in 2009, adding protections against crimes based on gender identity or sexual orientation and allowing a federal prosecution when it is in the public interest.
“Unlike a lot of crimes, these involve deeply felt community harm” in which an entire segment of the population is victimized, Levin said.
“At a time when we’re seeing record-high violence against our gay and transgender neighbors, I think the federal government can essentially make a policy statement that these kinds of cases should be prosecuted,” he said.
Read the complete article at “Killing of Jerry Paul Smith called 'irrational,' Isi Etute defense called discriminatory.”
The CSUSB Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism’s latest research on hate crimes against Asian Americans was cited in the following:
Jordan Clarkson, after aiding vandalized food truck: 'Just no room' for racist attacks
ESPN
June 10, 2021
Utah Jazz basketball player Jordan Clarkson, who is Filipino American, saw the hateful racial slur spray-painted all over a well-known Filipino food truck in Utah on social media and was overcome with raw emotion. …
The 29-year-old Clarkson was one of many, including local politicians and businesses, who wanted to help restore the food truck. Clarkson paid for interior cleaning and detailing and joined with vehicle wrap company Identity Graphx, which designed a new exterior for the truck that will be unveiled Saturday at the Philippine Independence Day celebration in Salt Lake City. Clarkson also offered the owners, Ben and Erin Pierce, significant financial support to get the truck up and running again.
The hateful slurs hurt the Jazz point guard deeply. Many Asians are living in fear in the United States amid a surge in hate crimes. From March 2020 to March 2021, there were more than 6,600 anti-Asian hate incidents documented by Stop AAPI Hate. Asian-targeted hate crimes in the biggest U.S. cities spiked 145% in 2020 compared to 2019, according to the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at Cal State San Bernardino. There have been verbal and physical attacks, with some ending fatally, such as the March 16 shootings that killed six Asian women in the Atlanta area.
Texas man facing hate crime charges after allegedly using racial slurs during altercation
The Hill
June 13, 2021
A Texas man was charged with a hate crime after allegedly saying racial slurs to a woman and her children, who are of Asian descent, and punching a man during an altercation in Florida.
The U.S. has seen an uptick in anti-Asian hate crimes over the last year. Hate crime data from the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at California State University-San Bernardino released in April found that hate crimes against Asian Americans rose by 169 percent when comparing the first quarter of 2020 to the first quarter of 2021 in 15 major cities.
These news clips and others may be viewed at “In the Headlines.”