WWU president explains ‘frightening’ threats made to students

The President of Western Washington University is not giving in to those who questioned his rationale for cancelling classes following hate speech targeting black students, detailing his, and law enforcement officials’, decision-making process.

In an email Friday to university faculty and staff, Bruce Shepard took responsibility for any frustration that came from any “incomplete and even seemingly contradictory messages” that they had received, saying there were certain details of the situation that he was not at liberty to share out of concern for an ongoing police investigation.

He said the post of greatest concern was reported to be, “Let’s lynch her,” in reference to Associated Student Body President Belina Seare, on an anonymous social media phone application called Yik Yak. He said the post reportedly only remained visible for about 30 seconds. The threats followed a discussion over the school’s Viking mascot. Some students were asking for it to be changed.

“Although then unverifiable, we took that report 100 percent seriously,” he wrote. “I am deeply appreciative of those who promptly brought this post to our attention.”

Related: Students speak out against ‘malicious comments’ made at Western Washington University

Shepard said other posts were reviewed, including the following:

• “In protest, we should hang a bunch of nooses from trees like Vikings used to kill Abbey monks.”

• “Yeah, and we can all dress up in white cloaks and we can have black people play the monks!”

Shepard said the University did not know if any of the posters have any affiliation with WWU. He added that the school issued search warrant to Yik Yak, which has cooperated with the investigation. Shepard noted that a considerable amount of additional police work will be necessary to identify the posters, and with no guarantee that those responsible can be certainly identified.

“Assuming we are able to ‘get’ those making the posts, that still does almost nothing to address the very real long-term matters of campus climate that we, and universities across the country, must continually improve,” he wrote.

Shepard said the prospect of cancelling classes had not been raised by Monday morning, but things changed after the “disturbing posts” continued early Tuesday morning. Shepard described those threats as derogatory, but that was no talk of lynching or nooses.

“The most frightening was a photo of a handgun with a bullet being injected,” he wrote. “Very, very scary. But, from the law enforcement perspective, this was permitted speech that was not connected to earlier issues. It was part of a thread discussing concealed carry, safety training, and such … In the view of law enforcement, those screenshots provided did not contain imminent or actionable threats to particular individuals or threats of sexual violence. That does not mean that there might not have been such statements, but we had seen none among the screen captures available to us.”

Shepard said, from a campus safety standpoint, there was still no need to cancel classes, but that he communicated with Seare several times during those early morning hours.

“There was not the least shred of a doubt in my mind about the genuineness and the validity of the fears our students of color were experiencing,” he wrote. “We were approaching the deadline for a decision on cancelling classes and, hence, had no time to put in place any means for adequately addressing those critically important fears. So, I decided to hit the ‘pause’ button; we cancelled classes.”

Related: What should the Western Washington mascot be?

Shepard said the talk of lynching, nooses created “absolutely concrete reasons” for many of our students to fear coming on our campus.

“We could continue to operate the general administrative functions of the university,” he wrote. “But, how could we require our students to be in class under such a pall of understandable fear?”

“While I have been and will continue to be criticized for the decision I made to cancel classes, I am proud to stand with Western in taking seriously the fears of our students of color,” he wrote. “A day of classes was lost. But do think about how tied up in knots – for days &#8212 some universities have recently become because they led with a tin ear and initially did nothing.”

Belina was offered around-the-clock protection and relocation to a local motel for her and anyone living with her. He said Belina never responded to four attempts to make security arrangements.

The morning after his decision to cancel classes, 270 faculty and staff received a “vile email” of the “white genocide,” “white supremacist” genre that “those of us in the forefront of these issues routinely receive.” He said the email was brought to the attention of the FBI.

“We also sought to determine if the message had been ‘targeted’ at faculty and staff of color; we found no such indications,” he wrote. “We believe the sender resides in the Midwest. Do not be surprised if messages such as the one I am now sending generate more of the same. These miscreants cruise the Internet looking for opportunities to try to instill fear.

“If, receiving such hate-filled white supremacist messages, we cower in fear, those trying to jerk us around, from thousands of miles away, achieve what they desire,” he wrote. “The last time this happened at Western, we used the threats as an opportunity to reassert our commitments to the core values from which we will not be dissuaded, certainly not by bullies hiding within the anonymity of the Internet. I believe it is time to again do so.”

Among the reactions is establishment of a “rumor control” website on Viking Village, where people can share rumors or ask questions. Those responsible for campus security are monitoring that site and will post responses for all to see.

“It is our current unequivocal assessment, guided by law enforcement officials, that the campus will be safe for us to resume classes come Monday,” he wrote. “We have a threat to one person and we are aggressively pursuing that threat. We know of no other threats specific to individuals or to the campus as a whole. We continue to monitor social media as well as other intelligence sources and, should the situation change, we will act as appropriate.

“There is nothing wrong in acknowledging that there are problems here at Western; we should only be embarrassed if we try to sweep them under the rug,” he added. “Or, do nothing about them.”