The chancellor's office also delivered a report Wednesday to the CSU board of trustees highlighting hate crimes and incidents that took place last year, while emphasizing the work it was doing to confront bias and extremism across the nation's largest public university system.
The report gave the trustees a chance to learn what campuses and the chancellor's office are doing now to address on-campus conflicts, rallies and incidents related to the Middle Eastern conflict.
EdSource reports the number of hate incidents reported within the Cal State system is relatively low across the 23 campuses with more than 460,000 students and 56,000 faculty and staff. However, there was a slight uptick in incidents from 2021 to 2022.
As of Dec. 31, 2022, the most recent data available, 13 hate crimes and six acts of violence related to hate were committed across the CSU system. The numbers reflect that six more incidents of hate and violence were committed last year than the previous year.
Melinda Latas, a CSU director who is in charge of campus safety compliance and disclosure for the university system, said hate violence includes incidents such as property destruction and verbal threats of force, or physical violence against a person or group of people, that do not meet the definition of a hate crime under California law.
