A wave of reported threats targeted historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) across the US on Thursday, prompting lockdowns, class cancellations, and ramped-up security measures at several campuses.
While authorities haven’t detailed the exact nature of the threats, no injuries were reported, and the FBI described them as “hoax threat calls” that they’re treating seriously, even though there’s no evidence of a credible danger. Lockdowns have mostly been lifted, but schools are still proceeding cautiously, especially in light of recent mass shootings, the violence that unfolded on Wednesday, and a string of fake active-shooter alerts earlier in the school year. Some institutions even decided to shut down classes for the week and send students home to play it safe.
US Rep. Troy Carter, a Democrat from Louisiana, condemned the incidents as “reprehensible attacks,” stressing that any threat against HBCUs is essentially a threat to the entire community. “These attacks cannot be tolerated, minimized, or ignored,” he said. “They must be met with swift and decisive action.
At Southern University in Louisiana, which has about 8,200 students, officials reported a potential threat to campus safety and placed the campus on lockdown for roughly an hour. Meanwhile, Alabama State University, with around 3,500 students near downtown Montgomery, instructed everyone to shelter in place while police methodically searched every building on site.
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