'Love needs a helping hand': Pitt, Carnegie Mellon launch joint center to combat extremist hate

Mar. 17—Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh are joining forces in a new research center designed to study and seek ways to halt the proliferation of extremist hate.

The announcement comes amid rising fears about ethnic violence against Asian Americans. On Tuesday night in Atlanta, a gunman killed eight people, six of Asian descent, at three massage parlors.

The genesis of the new center to study extremist hate, however, dates back more than two years.

Officials said the Collaboratory Against Hate Research and Action Center is the result of conversations spurred by the Oct. 27, 2018, Tree of Life Synagogue attack in Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill neighborhood that left 11 worshippers dead after a gunman stormed the building, home to three congregations, during Saturday morning worship.

Authorities later found the accused shooter, Robert Lee Bowers, had been active in online hate sites. He is awaiting trial in federal court, where he could face the death penalty.

The horrific massacre triggered conversations between Pitt Chancellor Emeritus Mark Nordenberg and CMU President Emeritus Jared Cohon when they served on a committee formed by the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh in the aftermath of the attack. Those conversations led to the creation of the new center.

Combating hate

The center will tap experts across a wide range of areas including computer science, data science, social sciences, psychology, psychiatry and law to study and combat hatred based on race, ethnicity, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation and other prejudices, university officials said.

The effort will be steered by Kathleen Blee, a sociologist who is dean of Pitt's School of Arts & Sciences, and Lorrie Cranor, a computer scientist who heads Carnegie Mellon's CyLab.

"Today we start recruiting researchers and clinicians who will work to understand extremist hate — how it is created online, how it spills over into the community and what kind of amelioration we can do to combat it," Blee said.

Cranor said they will seek a deeper understanding of the ways in which extremist hate spreads through various digital vectors and want to the develop tools to identify and combat it.

They won't lack for study subjects.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate crime activity in the U.S., there were more than 800 active hate groups last year. That included at least 33 in Pennsylvania, ranging from skinheads and the Ku Klux Klan to groups that target Muslims and the LGBTQ community.

And near daily reports of escalating violence against Asian Americans in the wake of the covid-19 pandemic has led to fears that new hatreds may be percolating across America.

Blee, who has studied white supremacists for more than 30 years, said the methods hate groups have developed to spread their beliefs and recruit adherents are alarming.

"Children are being reached innocently through online games developed by these groups," she said. "It used to be you had to go somewhere and take some risks and worry that someone was going to find out that you were trying to find these groups. Now that content comes even to children without any effort on their part. It is thrust at people without them having to look for it."

Cranor and Blee said their work will be aimed at extremist hate that targets groups and opens conversations that can encourage action or violence against a group. They said the center hopes to work with government agencies and technology companies as well as community groups.

"The (U.S.) Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice — those and other agencies — are very interested in supporting research in this area, and the Department of Defense is interested in identifying extremism in the military," Blee said.

Cranor said plans for the new center were in place before an angry mob stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Videos showed some rioters outfitted in Nazi regalia while others erected gallows and chanted "hang Mike Pence."

"Seeing that made this just that much more urgent," Cranor said.

'Well suited to do this'

State Rep. Dan Frankel, D-Squirrel Hill, is the prime sponsor of a package of bills designed to enhance Pennsylvania's hate crimes law and mandate education for those convicted of such crimes as well as those charged with enforcing the law. He was heartened to hear the universities are tackling the issue. He said he likely will be reaching out to them as he continues to rally support for his legislation.

"I think it is a really significant thing that those two universities are collaborating against hate, particularly the insidious routes that these groups have taken to recruit members and intimidate people. (Pitt and CMU) seem particularly well suited to do this, with computer science at CMU and the school of law at Pitt. I'm very gratified to learn about this," Frankel said.

Nordenberg, who collaborated with Cohon on a variety of joint efforts between the two research universities, said he hopes the impact of the new research effort will reverberate across the globe.

"Before the deadly attack at the Tree of Life synagogue, I rather naively assumed that love always would triumph over hate," he said. "As I came to learn more about the powerful tools that are being used to accelerate the spread of hate, however, it seemed clear that in today's world, love needs a helping hand. This center will be positioned to provide badly needed forms of help."

Deb Erdley is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Deb at 724-850-1209, derdley@triblive.com or via Twitter .