Woman admits tweeting fake threats to fellow black students

The students identified as the people behind a recent racist drawing found at Salisbury University’s library are black, school officials confirmed Tuesday.

The image, found April 10 on a whiteboard in Blackwell Library, showed a stick figure being hung and labeled with a racial slur. Underneath was the hashtag “#whitepower.”

The university confirmed Tuesday, April 26, the students involved in the incident were black, spokesman Richard Culver wrote in an email. The university would not provide names of the students, citing the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.

This information was first reported in the university’s student newspaper, The Flyer.

Since the incident, Salisbury University Police Department has completed its investigation, Culver said. In consultation with the Wicomico County State’s Attorney’s Office, the department has decided to not file criminal charges at this time.

The investigation is being turned over to the university and will be reviewed for any possible university policy violations, Culver said. If charged, those students who were involved could face disciplinary action.

“Regardless of who created the drawing, we find such actions demeaning to all members of the campus community and against our core values,” Dane Foust, vice president of Student Affairs, said in a statement provided by Culver.

Matthew Jackson, a senior at the university, said whoever drew that image didn’t understand the severity of it, and the fact that people were actually lynched throughout history. And that’s an issue, he said.

“The main problem … was that someone thought it was a joke,” he added. “(It was) an act of immaturity.”

For that sort of image to pop up in this day and age, Jackson said, shows the disjoint of education. People don’t know what happened, or don’t know how severe it was. They don’t seem to understand slavery and racism are not something to make light of.

Jackson said he’s had contact with the administration and that there’s a hope to have a meeting in coming weeks about what happened, and the goals students have been working toward in education and diversity.

The incident reignited the conversation around race on the Eastern Shore campus — a conversation that’s been at the forefront both locally and nationally for a while now.

Following the incident, University President Janet Dudley-Eshbach released a letter to students and faculty.

“Diversity is a core value of SU, and reports of such acts are taken seriously. The university will not tolerate this kind of language or behavior,” Eshbach wrote.

As of fall 2014, 2,156 students at the school out of 8,770 were minority students, according to the most recent Cultural Diversity Progress Report. Minority students now make up 25 percent of the student population, based on that report.

But despite Eshbach’s goals of diversity, and increases in minority students on campus, racial tensions have still run high during the last year.

Just before Thanksgiving, the president called a meeting with minority student leaders to discuss race relations on campus. It’s a meeting that ended abruptly, with students reading a letter asking for more time, and walking out.

“As students of color, WE DO NOT point fingers nor cast blame for the lack of awareness and understanding in regards to the black experience here at Salisbury University, keeping in mind that racism and cultural segregation existed long before any of us stepped foot on campus,” the letter read.

“However, we refuse to deny that the current environment on campus takes a huge toll on the psyche of students of color affected by the subconscious oppression.”

Jackson was one of those students at the meeting. He and other student leaders have been working to move forward with diversity initiatives holding forums and talking to students all year long.

When the racist graffiti showed up, it was a hurtful gesture, especially after all the work they’d tried to do, he had said.

“After we’ve already been making these strides … to see something like this. … It goes to show that there’s still work to be done,” Jackson said earlier this month.

A drawing depicts a crying stick figure being lynched.

A racial slur is next to the body, with an arrow pointing toward the hanging figure, labeling it.

Underneath, a hashtag — “#whitepower.”

It’s an image that’s been the topic of conversation after it was found Sunday drawn on a whiteboard in Salisbury University’s Blackwell Library. It’s under investigation as a possible hate crime by university police, school officials said.

The issue prompted a letter from Salisbury University President Janet Dudley-Eshbach on Monday morning.

“Diversity is a core value of SU, and reports of such acts are taken seriously. The University will not tolerate this kind of language or behavior,” Eshbach wrote.

Three State University of New York at Albany college students who claimed that they were the victims of a hate crime were punished by the Student Conduct Board for violating the code of conduct, the Times Union reported.
Two of the students, Ariel Agudio and Asha Burwell, were expelled from the school, and the third, Alexis Briggs, was suspended for two years, according to a public statement from SUNY Albany President Robert J. Jones.

The three women ignited an emotionally charged firestorm on SUNY Albany's campus in January after Burwell tweeted that they were the victims of a racially motivated attack on a city bus.

I just got jumped on a bus while people hit us and called us the "n" word and NO ONE helped us.

— Asha Burwell (@ashaburwell) January 30, 2016
No one.

— Asha Burwell (@ashaburwell) January 30, 2016
The incident garnered national attention. Even Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton weighed in, tweeting that there was "no excuse for racism and violence on a college campus."

There's no excuse for racism and violence on a college campus. t.co/ADVghl4iEv -H

— Hillary Clinton (@hillaryclinton) February 4, 2016
The women claimed that a group of 12 to 20 people, including white men, attacked them while riding a late-night bus route that students refer to as the "drunk bus," according to the Times Union. Many bystanders witnessed the account, but did nothing to help them, they said, according to the publication.

One of the students, Agudio, called 911 following the incident and told the dispatcher that the women were the victims of a "racial crime" and stated that "if someone doesn't come and take this down or something, I'm going to call the news," according to a copy of the call reviewed by the Times Union.

After authorities reviewed footage of the incident, however, a different story began to emerge.

The women appeared to be the aggressors in the video, which shows some of the white men trying to break up the fight, according to police.

"I especially want to point out that what happened on the bus was not a 'hate crime,'" University Police Department Chief J. Frank Wiley said in a statement, according to the Times Union.

The women were indicted and arraigned on 10 charges, including assault and false reporting, in early May.

After claiming that the trio were the victims of a hate crime in January, supporters rallied together to confront racism on campus. But now, with police providing evidence that the women lied, some question the damage already done to race relations.

Kristi Gustafson Barlette wrote in a column in the Times Union:

Did it occur to you that you weren't a woman of one (or three, since Ariel Agudio and Alexis Briggs are part of this, too) crying wolf, but rather your actions, your decisions, your choices will make people — the public, and otherwise — think many who come after you with their own legitimate, fair, honest claims of assault are also lying?

The incident on SUNY Albany's campus follows months of racial unrest on other college campuses across the nation. Minority students at Ivy League universities have protested institutional racism at their respective schools, and the president of the University of Missouri resigned last fall amid intense protests about racism on campus.