Black student advocacy groups, including NYU’s Black Student Union and Black Law Students Association, criticized the university for a “lack of transparency” when informing students of an anti-Black shooting threat emailed to administrators at around 11 a.m. on Thursday.
In a universitywide notice sent around two and a half hours after the initial threat, Campus Safety head Fountain Walker said the email — which was wracked with slurs and violent language threatening to open fire at Black students and faculty — was a “despicable racist threat of violence” and likely hoax. He did not further specify the nature of the threats, or detail that they specifically targeted Black members of the community.
Throughout the afternoon, bootleg screenshots of the threat circulated Instagram stories and groupchats, as details regarding its language and rhetoric became widely accessible. Some professors moved classes online as panic spread among students. It wasn’t until later that evening — around 4 p.m. — that Walker confirmed the threat was unfounded and said the email’s “threats of violence at the Black members of our community” deserved “forceful condemnation.”
BSU released a statement on Thursday evening denouncing the university’s initial email update.
“Whether hoax or not, it is clear that agitators have a mission to destroy any feeling of belonging or inclusion that Black students have at this campus,” BSU wrote on Instagram. “The willful withholding of critical, time-sensitive safety information from Black students represents the wrong solution to this problem.”
In his initial emails, Walker also said that no changes would be made to campus operations, though Campus Safety officers were “on heightened alert.” Walker did not respond to WSN’s request for comment regarding whether police presence is still elevated around campus.
Mills shared her first universitywide communication about the threat on Sunday, in a joint statement with Walker, writing that the faux email contained “vile, reprehensible racist language, threats of serious violence against Black members of our community.” Mills’ memo also included an FAQ about NYU’s protocols for responding to swatting threats and said the university’s Campus Safety department, Dean of Students Office and Office of the Title VI Coordinator will hold an information session on the incident later this week.
“We unequivocally condemn this hateful act and offer our full support to our Black students, faculty, administrators, and staff, who were targeted in this despicable way,” Mills and Walker wrote. “Expressions of racial hatred – any kind of hatred – have no place at NYU, and never will.”
The FAQ also addressed student questions regarding NYU’s continuation of campus operations on Thursday. It said that if the university suspected a “credible” threat, it would “never hesitate to direct our community to take appropriate action,” and reiterated that Campus Safety worked with federal and local law enforcement to quickly evaluate the situation.
In an interview with WSN prior to Mills’ Sunday email, CAS junior Sebastian Leon Martinez, a member of NYU’s chapter of the Young Democratic Socialists of America, claimed the university’s response showcased “inconsistencies” between its way of addressing the anti-Black threat and antisemitic incidents on campus.
“NYU treated instances of antisemitic hate crimes or actions explicitly and then offered to reach out and consult the targets of it immediately,” Martinez said. “With anti-Black violence, it was not as clear. It was not directly proportional in its response.”
On Wednesday morning, Walker sent a universitywide email addressing a report of antisemitic vandalism on a Weinstein Hall door the night before. The message, which contained the subject line “Hate Crime / Criminal Mischief,” stated that the incident was under investigation by NYU’s Campus Safety department, its Title VI coordinator and the New York City Police Department. About five minutes later, President Linda Mills sent a universitywide email condemning the attack against as “inexcusable raw hatred.”
According to Martinez, NYU did not immediately meet with Black student affinity leaders until Friday morning — a choice he called “definitely concerning.”
NYU was one of over a dozen universities to have received the same “swatting” email. The BSU statement pointed out that several historically Black schools, like Alabama State University and Hampton University, “entered precautionary lockdowns, ceasing all non-essential activity.” Even schools like Spelman College and Florida A&M University, which did not receive the email threat, enacted a lockdown out of “an abundance of caution.”
In a Friday statement, BLSA joined BSU in demanding the administration formally apologize, create “dedicated Black spaces for students to promote community” and “publicly acknowledge the anti-Black nature of the threat.” The law student affinity group also criticized NYU for “silence” in the roughly two hours between when the university received the email threat and Walker sent his first universitywide alert.
Earlier this year, BSU also said that NYU failed to acknowledge the “underlying motivation of racism” in a universitywide data breach that posted three charts with NYU’s average admitted SAT scores, ACT scores and GPAs by race. The incident’s alleged perpetrator had similarly posted anti-Black content and claimed that despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s takedown of affirmative action in 2023, “NYU continued anyway.”
“The best way NYU can support its Black and marginalized students on campus is by establishing a healthier system of accountability and giving a platform to those most impacted,” YDSA member and Gallatin junior Tapuwanashe Hightower told WSN. “[Students] need to have the liberty to advocate for themselves and have that advocacy protected by the administration.”
Contact Leena Ahmed at [email protected].
