Columbia University’s Barnard College faculty members and staffers are the latest targets of racist robocalls, according to a report in New York Daily News.
The racist calls made on campus landlines were linked to the murder of freshmen Tessa Majors, who was stabbed to death during an alleged robbing attempt gone wrong in Morningside Heights.
According to the schools, an unknown white supremacist group made racist calls to the campus phone lines related to the Major’s case.
“The contents of this message … are abhorrent and viciously racist,” reads the letter sent out to the university community.
“We write to let you know that we are actively looking into this with the NYPD and are working to block the caller … We take this attack on our values very seriously.”
On December 11, Majors was walking in Manhattan’s Morningside Park near Barnard College when she was attacked. The police later arrested a 13-year-old boy, who police believed was involved in the crime.
The school has asked the students and other community members to come forward if they have received such racist calls.
Lately, racist incidents on campuses across the country have seen a spike. Last November, similar calls were made on campus phone lines of Drake University by an Idaho-based white supremacist group, The Road to Power.
Last academic year, colleges across the country experienced 313 cases of white supremacist propaganda in the form of fliers, stickers, and posters, a 7 percent increase from the 2017-2018 academic year. The 2019 spring semester, in particular, saw a huge surge, with 161 incidents on 122 different campuses across 33 states and the District of Columbia.