Threats against black students at Kean U. were allegedly made by a student activist
An activist left a student rally against racism at Kean University in Union, N.J. last month, created a Twitter account, and allegedly made threats to kill black students on campus.
She then returned to the rally, at which students were raising awareness about efforts to end racism there and on campuses across the country, and warned students that multiple threats had been made, according to Grace Park, the acting prosecutor of Union County, N.J.
The threats — such as “I will shoot every black woman and male I see at kean university” and “@keanuniversity theres a bomb on your campus” — alarmed students, according to the Tower, a campus newspaper at Kean, a public university with about 16,000 students, and left classrooms empty the next day.
Kayla-Simone McKelvey, 24, was charged Tuesday with a single count of third-degree creating a false public alarm. The 2015 graduate and former Pan-African Student Union president on campus allegedly walked to a computer in a library on campus mid-rally to post the tweets, then returned to the evening protest.
(Rebecca Panico/KUTower.com)
The threats came after a surge in student protests, and racially charged threats at multiple colleges across the country. The University of Chicago canceled classes Monday after a student at another university threatened to execute people on the campus quad and die “killing any number of white policeman I can.”
Last week, Western Washington University canceled classes when someone on social media threatened minority students.
Eastern Kentucky University shut down for several days in October after someone wrote “KILL ALL BY 10/8/15″ on a bathroom wall. That threat came shortly after a student at an Oregon community college walked into a classroom and fatally shot nine people.
There was never any intention to actually harm students at Kean, the investigation by the Union County Prosecutor’s Office’s Special Prosecutions Unit and the Kean University Police Department concluded.
Investigation into motive is ongoing, according to a spokesperson for the county prosecutor.
McKelvey did not immediately return messages seeking comment Tuesday.
Kean President Dawood Farahi posted a message for the campus community Tuesday: “The Union County Prosecutor’s Office announced the results of its investigation and has charged the individual who sent the abhorrent tweets threatening the lives of members of our campus community.
We are saddened to learn that the person allegedly responsible was an active participant in the rally that took place on campus on Tuesday, November 17 and is a former student of Kean.
“As a diverse academic community, we wholeheartedly respect and support activism, however, no cause or issue gives anyone the right to threaten the safety of others. We hope this information will begin to bring a sense of relief and security to the campus community.
“Meanwhile, please know that the Counseling Center is open and available to all students. Kean continues to be one of the most diverse campuses in our country with a long-standing tradition of celebrating diversity and offering a world-class education to our student population.”
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