Howard University Security on Alert After Online Death Threats

An anonymous death threat against students at Howard University, a historically black university in Washington, D.C., led the university to tighten security on campus Thursday.

Students at the school had been standing in solidarity with black students at the University of Missouri, where school officials were ousted this week over complaints of racism. But while their actions garnered praise from alumni and students online, they prompted a person claiming to be a Mizzou student in Maryland to issue a scathing, profanity-laden death threat.

Students began posting images of the threat online Thursday morning.In reads in part, “any n—— left at Howard University after 10 will be the first to go. And any of these cheapstake n—— who try to get out using the metro will regret that choice real fast.”

According to Washington City Paper, some professors cancelled class out of an abundance of caution. The university’s president Dr. Wayne Frederick said in statement the school was heightening security around campus and public transit areas given the note. The FBI is also looking into the situation, according to Reuters.

The threats come at a troubling time for American universities and black and brown students. A massacre at a community college in Oregon last month was carried out by a gunman who is believed to have posted his plans on an anonymous message board the day before he carried them out. Recently, black students at several schools have begun taking action against what they say is unaddressed racism and bias by school officials.

“There’s a growing frustration of students of color as to how they’re being treated on campus … and we’re hearing and seeing that,” Dr. Frederick said in an interview with CNN on Thursday.