Microsoft is investigating a racist incident involving black freshmen at the University of Pennsylvania, which took place on the company’s GroupMe chat app.
A number of black students from UPenn were added to GroupMe accounts on Friday with titles such as “Mud Men” and “N****r lynching”, the students reported. Pictures of lynchings were posted and racist messages were sent using the accounts.
Microsoft said it was investigating Friday’s incident and would suspend accounts accordingly.
“As soon as we became aware of the chats taking place on GroupMe, which violated our terms of service, we took action and removed the chats,” a Microsoft spokesperson told the Guardian in a statement. “We’re investigating to determine which user accounts will be suspended.”
The incident led to UPenn partnering with the FBI to launch an investigation into the incident. Investigators yesterday reported that three individuals from Oklahoma may have been responsible for the messages. One was a student at the University of Oklahoma and was suspended.
“The University of Oklahoma has made it clear that we will not tolerate racism or hate speech that constitutes a threat to our campus or others,” said the University of Oklahoma president, David L Boren, in a statement. “We have a record of taking swift action once all of the facts are known.”
Students at UPenn were rattled by the news of the GroupMe account targeting black students. It remains unclear how the message group’s creators were able to identify and target black freshman students.
After the incident came light, several black students gathered at the vice-provost’s office to discuss the racist messages. Ngozi Olojede, a junior at UPenn with a double major in international relations and African studies, was present.
“At first I was angry, but then I think people were really upset and rattled,” Olojede said. “There were many tears.”
Black student groups organized a town hall for students to discuss the incident. Olojede said it lasted four hours as students recounted how they felt following the election results. The UPenn president, Amy Gutmann, also attended the town hall briefly.
“We call on everyone to recognize that the events of the past few days are a tragic reminder of the overt and reprehensible racism that continues to exist within some segments of our society,” Gutmann said in a statement on Sunday, “and that we all need to unite together as a community and a society to oppose.”
According to Philly.com, the messages originated from people using the handle “Daddy Trump”. Somebody separately sent the message “Heil Trump” to one of the GroupMe message groups. The incident comes as a rapidly growing list of alleged hate crimes have been reported throughout the country since Donald Trump’s victory last week.
Several groups began monitoring hate incidents widely reported online since election night. The Southern Poverty Law Center counted more than 200 incidents of hate in the three days following the election.
Trump graduated from UPenn’s Wharton School of Finance and his daughter Tiffany graduated from the university in May. In a post on Medium, UPenn alums called on Trump “to break his disturbing silence on this issue, and to follow through on his declaration that the nation must come together”.
Trump did so during a 60 Minutes interview on Sunday in which he told his supporters to “stop it” when asked about the allegations of harassment of minorities following his victory.
