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The FBI is investigating racist text messages sent this week to Black college students nationwide, including students from at least three South Carolina schools.
The federal law enforcement agency issued a statement Thursday saying it “is in contact with the Justice Department and other federal authorities on the matter.”
Students at the state’s two largest colleges — University of South Carolina and Clemson University — as well as students at Claflin University, a private historically Black college in Orangeburg, have reported receiving the texts that tell recipients they were “selected to pick cotton at the nearest plantation.”
Attorney General Alan Wilson said his office has not received any complaints directly from students, but he condemned the message, saying his office would forward any information it might receive to the FBI.
“These messages are vile and deplorable,” Wilson said in an emailed statement. “Whoever sent them is only trying to divide us and we must stand together against this kind of hatred.”
Attorneys general in other states, including Louisiana and North Carolina, have launched state-level investigations.
Clemson reported that its university police department is investigating the matter. And USC reported it is working with state and federal law enforcement.
Other states where students have reported receiving the texts include Missouri, Alabama, Wisconsin, and Tennessee.
In Tennessee, an alert from officials at Fisk University, a historically Black college near downtown Nashville, said they believe the messages are “likely the work of an automated bot or malicious actors with no real intentions or credibility.”
In Missouri, students receiving the viral message included the 17-year-old son of St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones. The mayor’s father then posted it on X, adding it’s not funny.
Margaret Huang, president of the Southern Poverty Law Center, called the messages “a public spectacle of hatred and racism that makes a mockery of our civil rights history.”
“Hate speech has no place in the South or in our nation,” she said, calling on national leaders to condemn “racism, in any form, whenever we see it.”