College students among those targeted with racist texts

Dive Brief:

• Black college students across the country this week were among those who received racist texts threatening them with being enslaved — heightening tensions following a vitriolic presidential campaign and the ultimate victory of Donald Trump.
• Young people in at least a dozen states and Washington, D.C., reported getting anonymous messages, some of which were signed “A Trump Supporter,” media reports show. The messages prompted immediate condemnation from student advocates and civil rights groups.
• The FBI on Thursday said it was aware of the “offensive and racist” messages and has partnered with other federal agencies, including the U.S. Department of Justice, to investigate the matter.

Dive Insight:

In a social media post Wednesday, Arleta Trayvick McCall shared a screenshot of a text message she said her daughter received. The message directed Alyse McCall, a Black student at the University of Alabama, to prepare to be enslaved and used racist language and imagery dating back to the days of U.S. slavery.

Although the messages’ language varied, at least some referred to recipients being picked up by “Executive Slaves” or “slave catchers” for work at plantations The post to McCall’s daughter, for example, said, “You have been selected to pick cotton at the nearest plantation” and directed her to be ready at a certain time “with your belongings.”

The University of Alabama is aware that the “disgusting messages” appear to be a national trend, Executive Director of Communications Deidre Simmons told the student-led newspaper The Crimson White this week. 

“UA students who have seen or received such messages are also encouraged to contact the Office of Student Care and Well-Being for any additional support that may be needed,” Simmons said this week.

The University of Alabama did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.

Clemson University, in South Carolina, said Thursday that multiple students had received the offensive messages. The public institution is working with state officials to identify the source of the texts, according to a Thursday statement.

“The messages appear to have been broadly distributed, as a number of other states and institutions have also reported the same or similar communications,” the university said. 

At least some of the messages appear to have been sent using TextNow, a free internet-based communications service.

In a statement Friday, the company said that the texts violated its terms of service.

“As soon as we became aware, our Trust & Safety team acted quickly and disabled the related accounts in less than an hour,” a spokesperson said via email. The company is working with law enforcement to investigate the attacks and work to prevent the perpetrators from sending any repeat messages.

While the scope of the text campaign is still being determined, a suburban Philadelphia area school district told parents that about six middle school students had received the messages.

New York Attorney General Letitia James also said K-12 and college students, along with others, had been targeted in the state.

James called the attacks “disgusting and unacceptable” in a Thursday statement. The texts are “targeting Black and Brown people” and have included personal information, such as recipients’ name or location, according to her announcement. 

Attorneys general in several states, including New Jersey, Maryland and Louisiana, released similar comments this week and urged anyone receiving the messages to report the incident to the authorities. Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown said K-12 and college students were among the recipients in that state, “causing significant distress.”

On Thursday, NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson tied the “deeply disturbing” text campaign to Trump’s statements.

“The unfortunate reality of electing a President who, historically has embraced, and at times encouraged hate, is unfolding before our eyes,” he said in a statement. “These messages represent an alarming increase in vile and abhorrent rhetoric from racist groups across the country, who now feel emboldened to spread hate and stoke the flames of fear that many of us are feeling after Tuesday’s election results.”

A spokesperson for Trump’s campaign said it “has absolutely nothing to do with these text messages,” CNN reported Friday.

In recent weeks, Trump’s campaign events and comments have included racist and anti-immigrant rhetoric. In October, for instance, a comedian at a New York rally made jokes invoking racist and disparaging stereotypes aimed at people who are Black, Latino or Jewish. Trump later tried to distance himself from those comments.

However, during a radio interview the same month, Trump claimed that immigrants charged with murder after illegally entering the country committed those crimes because “it’s in their genes,” adding there’s “a lot of bad genes in our country right now.”

Trump made anti-immigrant comments during his first presidential campaign as well. Some high-profile White nationalists supported Trump’s views toward immigration, The New Yorker reported in 2015. 

Hate crimes have spiked by over 80% from 2015 to 2021, according to data cited in a report from The Leadership Conference Education Fund, the research arm of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

Johnson promised that his organization would continue to fight against the climate that made such messages possible.

“We refuse to let them be normalized,” he said.

Trump’s history of stoking racial tensions predates his career as a politician. 

When he was best known as a New York City businessman, five Black and Latino teenagers were arrested for the 1989 rape and assault of a White jogger in Central Park. Trump became part of the story when he took out a full-page ad in the city’s biggest newspapers calling for a return of the death penalty.

The group, who became known as the Central Park Five, were ultimately exonerated as adults after over a decade. They have since sued Trump for defamation after he repeated claims that they had admitted to the crime. The state ultimately found that their confessions had been coerced by the police.