Black student groups at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have been targeted in a racist and discriminatory email that went out Tuesday, according to Mass Live.
The email includes racial slurs and offensive taunts in regards to a failed investigation into racist messages Black students were receiving during the fall semester.
It is unclear who sent the email at this moment, but the sender refers to Black students as “animals” and even had the unmitigated gall to say that they are allowed to hate and look down on Black people, according to Mass Live.
In regards to the unsuccessful investigation during the fall semester, the sender made fun of the lack of progress that students and the university have made in the probe. Those emails during the fall told Black students that they did not belong on campus, saying the school should consider “sterilization.”
The entirety of the email is below:
As an alumnus who went to a predominantly white institution (PWI), I know the feeling of not being welcome or wanted on campus. The feeling that wherever you go, someone probably does not want you there. When you’re given an opportunity, someone feels that you don’t deserve it. I understand the weight of not feeling safe on campus because of the way others may feel.
A Black student at the University who received the email said, according to Mass Live, “The university is working on it, and whatever happens, Black students need to feel safe and supported on this campus, and right now a bunch of us don’t.”
That same student reported the incident to local police on Wednesday. Chancellor Kumble Subbas contacted the Northwestern District and the United States Attorney’s office.
More from Mass Live:
UMass enlisted the help of Stroz Friedberg Digital Forensics, a national cybersecurity firm, to investigate the emails from the fall. But the probe has since been unsuccessful, Subbaswamy said Tuesday.
In a message to the campus community Tuesday night, Subbaswamy said that law enforcement was investigating messages sent to at least four Black student groups, several individual Black students and one campus office.’
“[We] will do everything within our power to hold the racist, hateful coward who sent it accountable,” the chancellor said, but he cautioned that investigations into these types of incidents can be difficult, according to police. The investigation by Stroz Friedberg into the fall emails, in collaboration with the UMass Police Department, the school’s office of Information Technology and the district attorney’s office had yet to identify a perpetrator.
The sender claims to represent the police investigators and university administration, claiming that is the reason why the investigation during the fall semester went nowhere.
In response to those claims, District Attorney David Sullivan said in a statement, “This email was similar in tone to one sent out last semester, but this one also contained mistruths about law enforcement’s role in the investigation that I seek to correct now.”
He continued, “The Northwestern District Attorney’s Office, along with its law enforcement partners, approaches this investigation with the utmost seriousness, care and attention. Free speech is rightly held dear in this country, but it does not permit hate speech that threatens and intimidates in a way that interferes with a right to education.”