HBCU bomb threats prompt federal grants to enhance campus security
Morehouse College said its campus can return to normal activities after police investigated a suspicious package, prompting a shelter-in-place order. (FOX 5 Atlanta)
WASHINGTON - The White House is expected to announce grants available to Historically Black Colleges and Universities under a U.S. Education Department program designed to help improve campus security.
Vice President Kamala Harris planned to announce the program on Wednesday. Its launch about two days after an investigation of a suspicious package at Morehouse College that police determined was a false alarm.
"In the last three months, more than one-third of our country’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have received bomb threats," a White House statement said, in part. "While, thankfully, no explosive devices were found on any of these campuses, significant and lasting damage has been done by threatening the safety and security of the students, faculty, and staff at these institutions."
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Harris is expected to announce that historically Black colleges and universities, or HBCUs, are now eligible for grant funding under the Project School Emergency Response to Violence program at the Education Department.
The program aims to provide resources to bolster campus safety and security at HBCUs.
After Monday's bomb threat, Morehouse College issued a statement:
"Recent threats against HBCUs are proof that we are doing something right. Our ability to use educational excellence to empower talented students means that the status quo will necessarily be disrupted as they become leaders in every field. Though it may make some uncomfortable, we will nevertheless proceed undaunted in our work to create transformative agents of change. No threat has ever, or will ever, stop us from turning dreams into triumph."
Bomb threats at HBCUs
Monday's threat was It was not the first against a Historically Black Colleges and Universities this year. Morehouse alerted its campus of a separate threat in February.
Spelman College closed its campus to due to a bomb threat.
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The Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, and the FBI launched investigations into the bomb threats that started at the beginning of Black History Month. Nearly 20 Black colleges in the Deep South and along the East Coast received bomb threats since February 1. They've not altogether stopped since the end of Black History Month.
"These threats are despicable. They are designed to make us feel fearful and vulnerable," Spelman President Mary Schmidt Campbell, Ph.D. said in a statement.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.