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.     

Latino family businesses thriving in Inland Empire
The Sun
Dec. 11, 2022

Studies show that more Latinos entrepreneurs and children of immigrants are starting and growing family-run businesses in the Inland Empire.

A 2021 report by the Inland Empire Center for Entrepreneurship at Cal State San Bernardino found 35% of Inland businesses are owned by minorities, with Latino owners representing the largest portion, at 16%.

Inland Latino-owned businesses are the “primary driver of minority entrepreneurship” and have continued to grow regionally, despite economic hurdles from the pandemic, researchers said in the report.

Mike Stull, the center’s director, said the percentage of Latino-owned firms has grown significantly “over the past five years, despite ‘the pandemic effect,’” and that “the creation of new firms in the IE is being driven by minority entrepreneurs, particularly Latinx entrepreneurs, (who are) growing at a rate faster than state and national trends.”

“It sends a strong message that business ownership is possible and a very viable pathway for underrepresented minorities,” Stull said of the center’s findings. “I think it also does signal that many entrepreneurs are creating services, products and experiences that are attractive to the greater market, but also can often meet the specific needs of the very large Latinx market we have in the region.”

CSUSB Model United Nations team continues tradition of excellence at Japan conference
Redlands-Loma Linda Patch
Dec. 12, 2022

Two teams in Cal State San Bernardino’s Model United Nations program brought home top honors after participating in the National Model United Nations-Japan conference in Kobe, Japan, recently, continuing the program’s long tradition of excellence.

The team representing India was named a Distinguished Delegation for the conference, and the team representing Jamaica was awarded Outstanding Delegates in Committee, working in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Committee. The conference took place Nov. 20-27, which included the students’ Thanksgiving break, and was hosted by Kobe City University of Foreign Studies.

“This group of incredible students contributed, collaborated and cooperated with more than 400 students from 36 colleges and universities to find sustainable and equitable solutions to the pressing global issues,” said Sina Bastami, director of the CSUSB Model UN program. “From environmental crisis to gender inequality, these global citizens offered solutions and created an environment for others to contribute for creating a better future for all humankind.

“They also promoted and advanced the NMUN’s theme for the next decade, ‘Promoting a Just Peace for 21st Century,’ by being recognized as one of the most inclusive groups of delegates,” he said. “Their hard work, professionalism, inclusivity and knowledge earned them consistent and constant praise by everyone, culminating in winning the two top awards for the two countries they represented.”

Over 7,000 hate crimes were reported to the FBI in 2021. Here's why that data is flawed.
USA Today
Dec. 12, 2022

An annual FBI report released Monday found there were more than 7,000 hate crimes in 2021. But that's just a fraction of the true number, experts — including the bureau's director — say.

"The FBI's hate crime data release is so severely hampered by a decline in participating agencies," said Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at the California State University San Bernardino. "It is simply not representative of the actual hate crime trend, which is up."

New FBI hate crimes report undercounts bigotry-based attacks on racial minorities and LGBTQ people
NBC News
Dec. 12, 2022

Just 65% of police departments nationwide provided the FBI with hate crimes statistics for 2021, compared to the 93% that did so the previous year, the bureau said.

“The significant decline in participating police agencies in 2021 due to a transition to a new platform killed the accuracy of national totals," said Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino.

Levin, whose own research saw a staggering 224% increase in anti-Asian crimes last year, as well as big increases in bias crimes against Jews, Latinos, Black people and members of the LGBTQ community, said the result is that the new FBI report is an out-of-focus snapshot on what's going on in America.

"Today’s overall FBI numbers simply do not reflect the increases we’re seeing across more reliable and consistent data from a smaller but more consistent set of police data," he said.

FBI hate crime report needs to be amended, CSUSB professor says
VOA News
Dec. 12, 2022

Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University San Bernardino and an expert on hate crimes, said the latest FBI hate crimes report, with nearly one-third of law enforcement agencies not submitting data last year, was “the most incomplete reporting going back to the beginning of the hate crime data collection program decades ago."

"The FBI counted only 73 hate crimes from California using 15 out of 740 agencies, while the California attorney general showed over 1,700 [cases]," Levin said.

The exclusion of New York City and California incidents alone suggests that there were more than 9,000 hate crimes in 2021, representing only the second time above that threshold since the FBI collected hate crime data more than three decades ago, Levin said.

"The report needs to be amended," Levin said.

FBI’s latest hate crimes report ‘critically flawed,’ CSUSB professor says
Los Angeles Times
Dec. 12, 2022

Brian Levin, director of CSUSB’s Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, and other experts said the underreporting in the FBI’s latest hate crime study should not have been published.

“It’s a critically flawed, incomplete document that fails to capture the fundamental elements that criminologists want to know,” said Levin, who urged the FBI to amend the report. “You can’t leave out nearly all of California and Florida!”

Levin said the FBI statistics were particularly disappointing because they did not capture what he believed to be a significant national rise in hate crimes. If just New York City and California’s 2021 figures were added to the mix, the national totals would jump past 9,000 for only the second time since the FBI began collecting hate crimes data in 1991.

Levin, who compiles his own hate-crimes database drawn from Freedom of Information Act requests and agency websites, noted that much of the information was not difficult to obtain. Back in June, the California attorney general’s office announced a surge of 1,763 hate crimes in 2021.

CSUSB professor interviewed about rise in hate crimes in Los Angeles County
Spectrum News 1 Los Angeles
Dec. 12, 2022

Brian Levin, director of CSUSB’s Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, was interviewed for a segment on the increase of hate crimes that are targeting the Black community. The Los Angeles County Commission on Human Relations recently released a report showing an increase in hate crimes across the county. The county’s numbers are reflective of what’s happening across the country, Levin says, and that it’s time for society put back guardrails on social discourse. “When invective goes up online, we see it go up on the streets in the form of violence, time and time again,” he says.

CSUSB Palm Desert Campus street medicine program teams with mobile clinic
Health Care Today
Dec. 10, 2022

CSUSB Nursing Street Medicine Program has been selected to partner with a new community mobile clinic in the Coachella Valley. Mobile clinics – the result of collaboration between Desert Healthcare District foundation, Coachella Valley Conservation Area, desert doctor medical group (DPMG) Health and other community partners – announced on Dec. 2 at the Desert Regional Medical Center (DRMC) in Palm Springs.

“We are so grateful to the district and DPMG for the opportunity to provide unique behavioral health telehealth services to the vulnerable populations in the valley and increase the availability of psychiatric medications for persons with mental health and substance abuse issues,” said Diane Vines, CSUSB nursing faculty and director of the CSUSB Nursing Street Medicine Program. “I’d also like to thank the Houston Family Foundation for funding the behavioral health activities that the Nursing Street Medicine team will provide.”

These news clips and others may be viewed at “In the Headlines.”