Wolf is president of the campus Black Caucus and known as an outspoken advocate for the school’s African-American population, which constitutes only 4 percent of the student body.
“Niggers are to be seen and not heard,” the letter read, in part. “Like it or leave, black loud mouth bitch.” When she first alerted the university administration of the letter, one official reportedly told her to “call back if she got another one.” Since then she’s received three more letters, each threatening her life in increasingly explicit detail.
Wolf is not the only one to receive such messages. Since November 1999, upward of 70 students at Penn State, including African-American members of the football team, minority student leaders and a white student journalist who reported on race issues, have received similar letters or e-mails. Some parents and a black member of the university board of trustees have also been targeted. Although one batch of e-mails was traced to a computer lab in Philadelphia, no arrests have been made.
Minority students have grown increasingly frustrated with the university’s handling of the incidents. “We’re scared for our lives,” says Assata Richards, a Penn State graduate student and member of the Black Caucus. “This is a critical situation and the university needs to assume some accountability.”
On April 20, the simmering tensions on campus hit a boiling point, when Wolf received a fourth letter. According to students who copied the letter before turning it over to the FBI it read, in part, “this is a white academy in a white town … by God it’s going to stay that way nigger bitch … You will just disappear and never be found.” The writer claimed to have already killed a young black man whose body, the letter said, could be found on a mountain near campus. In addition, the author promised “bombs” on graduation day.
Over the past week, students have shaken-up the campus with large-scale protests to draw attention to their concerns over racial issues, which they say run deeper than the recent threats. Hundreds of students have been involved in a “camp-in” at a university building, representatives from the national NAACP have arrived on the scene to back-up the students and 26 people have been arrested in protests over the threats.
The first demonstration was launched April 21, when a group of students charged the field at Penn State’s Beaver Stadium in the middle of a football game to draw attention to the hate threats. The 26 arrested were hauled off the field by Penn State University Police and charged with criminal trespassing. (The charge was later reduced to a citation.) Black student leaders say they planned the protest after the university president, Graham Spanier, was reluctant to let them address the football game crowd over the stadium loudspeaker. Instead, he told them they could write a brief statement to be read by the game announcer.
“The university puts its image before the lives of the students at the school,” says Takkeem Morgan, a Penn State freshman who was arrested during the football game protest. “This was a Blue and White pride game, we had a lot of alumni down that day. Any mention of a death threat would definitely take a toll on Penn State’s image.”
Since the unrest began last week, at least one more student has received death threats, and student fears amplified last Tuesday when the bullet-ridden body of a young black man was discovered in Bradford County, Pa., three hours away. Authorities stress that there is absolutely no evidence linking the body to the death threats, and it was found nowhere near the site where the letter specified a body would be found. The university dispatched an e-mail memo to all students and faculty dispelling any possible connection and assured the school community that no black students at Penn State had been reported missing.
Last Friday evening, another black body was discovered much closer to campus. It belonged to a 38-year-old man, killed by a bullet. Again, police stress there appears to be no evidence linking the body to Penn State, but that does little to calm concerned students or quiet the campus tensions. “They always say oh, it’s drug-related, its not racial,” says senior Tanya Clarke. “And then, much later, it turns out it’s racial.”
The university defends its handling of tensions on campus. “We immediately brought in the State Police, the FBI, the State District Attorney’s office and the U.S. Postal Service,” says Christy Rambeau, a Penn State spokeswoman, referring to Wolf’s most recent letter. “We’ve provided round-the-clock protection for the student named in the threat.” The university raised a reward for information leading to the letter source from $5,000 to $10,000, and a search team was deployed to comb the specific area where it said a body would be found. President Spanier has sent out e-mails to students condemning the incidents and vowing to get to the bottom of it. Last week, he announced a “No Hate at Penn State” march, but it fizzled when African-American students refused to join him and held an alternative rally.
Students contend the university has offered too little, too late-and is only responding to their concerns now that the letters are drawing media attention and threaten the university with bad publicity. They say race issues have long plagued Penn State’s campus in State College, Pa., known as “Happy Valley,” which is almost entirely white.
“I’d sit in class and kids in the back row would call me nigger,” Tanya Clarke says. “After dark I would not leave my house. I did not feel safe.” Other students recall having rocks thrown at them out of car windows or being denied entrance to a party because of their race.
“Kids drive around with confederate flags on their car windows,” Richards says. “This is a hostile environment.”
The unexpected location for these incidents, a secluded Eastern college, has surprised many. “It speaks to the myth that ’those folks down South are bad, and us folks up North are good,’” says Takkeem Morgan. In fact, a 2001 report by the Southern Poverty Law Center shows that Pennsylvania has one of the highest concentrations of hate groups of any state in the nation.
Jeffrey Johnson, Youth Director for the NAACP, arrived on campus today, to help students negotiate with the administration and draw national attention to the situation. “We see there’s intolerance for sexual misconduct and academic dishonesty at colleges, but there still seems to be tolerance for racial intimidation,” he says. “Our concern is that Penn State take immediate action to protect student safety, and formerly declare that it will not tolerate racial intimidation of any kind.”
Since last Tuesday, hundreds of students have hauled sleeping bags and blankets to the Hetzel Union Building to stage a camp-in. They are refusing to budge until the administration accepts a series of proposals to promote tolerance and diversity on campus.
The university promptly ceded to many of the demands last Thursday.
“Many of the student’s diversity initiatives were already in the works,” says Rambeau, though students say they’ve been asking for some of them since last October with little response. On Thursday, the administration promised $900,000 over the next five years to fund an African Studies Research Center, pledged to increase minority faculty hiring and said it would restructure the administrative position that oversees educational equity.
The students, however, are holding out on one final demand for “accountability.” They want 2 percent of each department’s budget to be withheld and then released pending their successful enforcement of the diversity initiatives.
The administration has tried to downplay the intensity of the current camp-in. “There are some students who’ve been quoted who say that the difficulties between the races have been overblown,” Rambeau says. “It’s the end of the semester and all the issues came tumbling out. In the best of times the end of the semester is volatile, its always a tense time on a college campus.”
School may be nearly finished for the year, but some students at the university say they’re not going anywhere. “We’re going to stay until our needs are met,” Morgan said from the camp-in, which is now entering its seventh day.
Morgan, who came to Penn State from an area in North Philadelphia he describes as an “impoverished ghetto,” and a high school with “no books,” says Penn State wasn’t quite the escape he expected. “I’m a freshmen here and this is my first crack at college. This is where I came to party and have fun. And now, I can’t walk home by myself. I can’t go to class without looking over my shoulder. And I’m definitely not going to any late night parties.”
