Ariel Lynn Guidry
November 11, 2008
Southern Smith
November 13, 2008
A vitriolic hate e-mail sent to several black Nicholls State University students has the campus on edge.
The Federal Bureau of Investigations was notified Thursday after three Nicholls students reported receiving an e-mail in which the sender threatened to kill them in retaliation for President-elect Barack Obama’s win.
The sender, allegedly a 19-year-old black man from Poplarville, Miss., is being investigated by the FBI, an agency spokeswoman said Monday.
Special Agent Sheila Thorn said the investigation is still ongoing and charges are pending. The FBI is in the process of seeking a prosecution opinion from the U.S. Attorney General.
In the meantime, university officials are asking other students who may have received similar threats or e-mails to contact campus police.
The vulgarity-laced missives were sent via Facebook shortly before midnight Tuesday, hours after polls closed locally in the 2008 Presidential Election.
Facebook, a popular social Web site, features profiles – including photographs – of users. The recipients of the threatening e-mails surmised that the sender forwarded his message to them because of their race.
“A couple of the students received hateful and threatening e-mails that they believed were in response to the election results,” said Nicholls’ Dean of Student Life Rush Johnson. “It was reported to the University Police, the Louisiana Attorney General’s Office and to Facebook officials.”
Students and school officials are taking the threats seriously, although the sender’s motive is unknown.
“It’s certainly possible (it could have been sent as a joke),” Johnson said. “At this point, the university does not know the motivation behind the e-mail.”
Nicholls’ Chief of Police Craig Jaccuzzo said an immediate investigation was launched. School officials traced the sender’s ISP numbers back to the account, the user was identified as a Mississippi man. Because the e-mail was generated outside of Louisiana, Jacuzzo said the FBI’s New Orleans division was notified.
Nicholls junior John Godfrey and senior Ashonta Richardson, who both received the e-mail, said the most horrific part of the message was the threat of being killed at the hands of another person.
“I’m just letting you know so that you are not supprised (sic) that when a random white man is waking (sic) down the street just split your f—in’ head wide open,” the e-mail closes.
“I was terrified and didn’t know what to do,” Richardson said. “I continued to go to class but I felt that something was going to happen to me.”
“I want to feel safe while getting an education, but it made it more serious to know that that other students had received that message from this campus,” Godfrey added.
With the recent increase in school violence, neither Richardson or Godfrey took the e-mail lightly.
“We immediately reported the e-mail,” Godfrey said.
“I have never had anyone threaten my life,” Richardson said. “I feel that whoever sent the e-mail targeted us for some reason and I do not like that.”
Godfrey said since reading the e-mail, he and his friends have been sticking closely together. “With different things happening in the past at other schools, we are not about to take this as a joke,” he said.
Once news about the investigation circulated across the campus, the university’s Young Democrats Association and the Nicholls chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People staged a “speak-in” to address the tension around campus caused by the e-mails.
Ironically, the “speak-in” kicked off Diversity Week, which is a celebration held to embrace the diversity among Nicholls students and faculty on campus.
“It is very stressful because you come from a week of great enthusiasm and it seems that the nation is changing with the election of an African-American as president,” said Eric-Christian Thompson, president of NAACP chapter on Nicholls campus. “Then, the next day, the whole morale changes.”
A microphone was placed in the student union where students were allowed to make comments about intolerance, hate and racism.
“Any student, regardless of race, had the opportunity to stand before their peers and speak freely about intolerance to hate and racism,” Johnson said. “Although African-American students were targeted, this is something that all students can stand up and speak about.”
Although the investigation has been handed over to federal authorities, campus police are continuing to be vigilant in searching for other recipients of the hate e-mail.
“This is not something that happens on Nicholls campus that often,” Jaccuzzo said. “The students should have felt threatened by the e-mail and we are glad that they sought help. We don’t know what goes on unless they tell us.”
Nicholls State’s John Godfrey (left) and Eric-Christian Thompson, president of NSU’s NAACP chapter, browse through Godfrey’s Facebook account. Godfrey was one of nine students to receive a death threat via the Internet. * Photo by KYLE CARRIER
