Thiago Guimaraes expected a routine commute to class when he boarded his NYU shuttle on Oct. 23. But less than 10 minutes later, he was hastily evacuating as the bus stopped at East 16th Street.
“The bus driver stood up and said, ‘Everybody get out,’” Guimaraes, a CAS junior, told WSN. “We all asked, ‘Why?’ And he said, ‘I don’t know. They didn’t give me a reason.’”
Over the next hour, reason behind the abrupt stop became clear: NYU’s buses had received a bomb threat and temporarily shut down all operations in response. Confusion cleared up and shuttle routes resumed by late afternoon. However, taking place just weeks after NYU faced backlash for its vague responses to a hoax shooting threat — and immediately after administrators promised to “do better” as a result — pressure was on the university to keep community members informed.
But alerts relating to the the bomb threat still lacked clarity, a WSN survey of 355 students found. The series of three emails — one informing students of the threat, one updating them on traffic flow and one letting them know that the issue had been cleared — satisfied around 50% of the group, but was still insufficient to nearly 44%. Some students said they never knew about the bomb threat to begin with.
“We get these safety threats, and we have the short span of security and heavy attention, but then it kind of goes away,” Guimaraes said. “Since threats occur at this school so often, it gives students the feeling that things aren’t taken care of the way they probably should be.”
WSN surveyed students at several academic buildings around Washington Square, including the Paulson Center, the Kimmel Center for University Life and Bobst Library. While 41.6% of students said the bomb threat communication marked an improvement from that of the hoax shooting, 49% said it did not.
NYU administrators received an alias email on Sept. 11 with a manifesto threatening to open fire on Black students and faculty. As the threat circulated on platforms such as Reddit, causing fear and panic, students were not informed of the incident — later deemed a hoax, “swatting” threat — until nearly two hours later. Students groups criticized Campus Safety head Fountain Walker for not enforcing the “precautionary lockdowns” that other schools enacted upon facing similar threats.
Walker sent another email nearly three hours later, condemning the incident’s “vile racial language.” President Linda Mills did not address the issue until Sept. 22, when she said that the incident “instilled fear in Black members of the NYU community.” At a University Senate meeting two weeks later, Mills said that her delayed response was “insult to injury” and announced plans to hold listening sessions for further discussion about Campus Safety alerts.
“They need to make a more concerted effort to figure out why these things keep on happening and put a bit more heart into the messages they send to the school community,” LS sophomore Benjamin Saravi told WSN. “Right now, it just seems like it’s all AI-generated.”
Two days before the bomb threat, over 50 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers raided street vendors on Canal Street — less than five minutes away from NYU’s largest dorm, Lafayette Hall. Although the university reported that no students were affected by the ICE raid, Campus Safety officers initially told WSN that they were not aware of the event, despite federal agents detaining nine street vendors of African descent and aggressively confronting protesters.
When asked whether NYU should communicate to the university members about nearby immigration raids as the Trump administration vows to ramp up operations in New York City, 88.7% of students responded “Yes.” In February, amid a heightened crackdown on student visas, NYU stated that it would “comply with the law.” On Nov. 3, NYU administrators said that the university will not protect noncitizen members from ICE operations in public areas outside of NYU buildings.
“If it’s on campus, in Washington Square Park, you should definitely be releasing it to the student body,” CAS sophomore Nash Dsouza told WSN. “It’s not even a political thing — it’s just safety.”
Contact Paige Ablon and Roya Statler at [email protected].