In the wake of credible threats against nine HBCUs last week, the UNCF has condemned the threats and renewed calls for federal government support to protect the majority Black schools.
The institutions received calls and emails threatening violent acts, including bombings and shootings. One school found a suspicious person with a gun on campus, but it was unknown whether the person posed any danger. The schools responded with immediate lockdowns, class cancellations and heightened security measures.
The United Negro College Fund, which represents private HBCUs, is requesting the FBI, Congress and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to help secure the schools.
“HBCUs are being targeted at a rate higher than any other category of higher education institutions,” said Lodriguez V. Murray, senior vice president for public policy and government affairs for the UNCF. “We urge the Federal Bureau of Investigation to be transparent in its investigation of these threats.”
The FBI called them “hoax threats” and said it is working with several police departments to get more information.
“The FBI takes these threats very seriously because it puts innocent people at risk,” the FBI said in a statement. “While we have no information to indicate a credible threat, we will continue to work with our local, state, and federal law enforcement partners to gather, share, and act upon threat information as it comes to our attention.”
The schools targeted were Virginia State University in Ettrick, Virginia; Hampton University in Hampton, Virginia; Southern University and A&M College in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach, Florida; Clark Atlanta University in Georgia, and Alabama State University in Montgomery.
In 2022, threats to several HBCUs were delivered by juveniles, sometimes through online gaming platforms. Once reported in the press, copycats began to make threats that impacted 51 historically black colleges and universities. Meanwhile, HBCUs are community-oriented and open. Only one of the 105-plus HBCUs is gated.
Since then, the UNCF has “called on Congress to provide dedicated funding in appropriations bills to better protect and fortify HBCUs, and that call is even more urgent today.”
Murray also says, “The federal government’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has a program that could benefit HBCUs, but for years and years our institutions have faced repeated barriers in accessing those funds.”
The HBCU security funding request is not new. An assessment from 2022-2023 shows 76 threats during that period, with 77 days of school disruption.