Community Leaders Call for Essential Funding for Statewide Anti-Hate Program to Protect Communities and Prevent Hate
SACRAMENTO, CA — As hate and bias continue to impact communities across California, AAPI Equity Alliance joined community organizations, service providers and government agencies, to call on state legislators to secure sustained funding for the Stop the Hate program during the California State Assembly Human Services Committee hearing on the “State of Hate in California” on Tuesday, February 24.
AAPI Equity Alliance serves as the Los Angeles Regional Lead for California’s Stop the Hate program, supporting 42 grantees providing direct services, prevention activities, and intervention measures for vulnerable communities across Los Angeles, one of the state’s most impacted and diverse regions.
“The data shows that hate crimes and hate incidents are still on the rise, and our federal government is sanctioning hate,” said Manjusha P. Kulkarni, executive director of AAPI Equity Alliance and co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate, the nation’s largest reporting center tracking anti-Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) hate acts.
According to the Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission’s annual hate crime report, L.A. County has seen a long-term increase, as well as a consecutive annual rise in reported hate crimes since 2014. There were 1,355 reported hate crimes in Los Angeles County in 2024, the second highest ever in the 44-year history of this report.
“Acts of hate prevent California’s employees from going to work, California kids from attending schools, and California seniors from getting their groceries and prescriptions,” Kulkarni said. “Through the Stop the Hate program, AAPI Equity Alliance and our grantees work to ensure that Californians from marginalized communities get the services they need to enable them to return to school and work and enable them to thrive.”
Recent actions, including the kidnapping, detention, and deportation of friends, family, and undocumented community members, seizure of international students, and abduction of U.S. citizen children from schools, have incited acts of hate among some Californians. Kulkarni testified that Stop the Hate protects all 40 million of California residents, including the most marginalized, and preserves California’s values to uphold democracy, civil society, diversity and inclusion.
The hearing reviewed the impact of California’s Stop the Hate program on diverse communities, highlighting the vital role of the statewide network of 180 community-based organizations in ending hate and bias. These organizations serve Asian, Black, Latinx, LGBTQ+, Pacific Islander communities, religious minorities, and people with disabilities. The Stop the Hate program was created in response to the rise in hate in California and in 2021, $110 million was allocated to community organizations providing services to individuals and communities targeted by acts of hatred.
Brian Levin, Chair of the California Commission on the State of Hate, highlighted the roles that community-based organizations play and how they are “critical for building social ties, which research shows can buffer communities from the impacts of hate and other challenges they face.” He continued, “research shows that quality social ties can protect people from the adverse health consequences of prejudice and other stressors.”
Community leaders expressed the importance of reauthorizing the Stop the Hate program, including sustained multi-year infrastructure funding, expanded trauma-informed, in-language support services, targeted capacity building in under-resourced communities, and continued support for trusted community-based organizations.
Future hearings are expected to be held by the California State Assembly Human Services Budget Subcommittee regarding the reauthorization of the Stop the Hate program.
