Governor names USC’s Erroll Southers to Commission on the State of Hate

Erroll Southers, USC’s associate senior vice president of safety and risk assurance, has been appointed to the California Commission on the State of Hate. Gov. Gavin Newsom made the announcement on Friday.

The commission will assess data on hate crimes in California, provide resources for victims and make policy recommendations to better protect people’s civil rights.

“As a state and as a nation, we face a rising threat environment created by extremist narratives and the people who espouse them,” said Southers, the former director of the Safe Communities Institute at the USC Price School of Public Policy.

“This is a multidimensional problem, and the approaches to reducing hate, promoting tolerance and preventing violence are necessarily complex. Identifying those solutions requires collaboration, and I am honored to work alongside consummate experts and leading practitioners as an appointee to the Commission on the State of Hate.

“This is an opportunity for us to help the state and the country track and study hate crimes and extremist violence and develop the policy solutions that can lead to a safer and more peaceful society.”

Southers is a former FBI special agent and has served in counterterrorism and public safety positions at every level of government. He earned a Master of Public Administration degree and a Doctor of Policy, Planning and Development degree from USC.

Other appointees named Friday are Cynthia Choi, co-director of Chinese for Affirmative Action and a co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate; Brian Levin, founding director at the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism and a professor at California State University, San Bernardino; Bamby Salcedo, president and chief executive officer at the TransLatin@ Coalition; and Shirin Sinnar, a law professor at Stanford University.

Appointees are not compensated and do not require state Senate confirmation. Learn more on the governor’s website.