Email with racially targeted threat proven to be a hoax

Editor’s Note: This article has been updated to include information from an interview with Lehigh Police Chief Jason Schiffer

Members of the campus community “received a disturbing email earlier today including a racially targeted threat” that was determined to be a hoax, according to a Hawkwatch alert sent at 12:37 p.m. 

The alert did not disclose who received the email or its content.

The Lehigh University Police Department has worked with the FBI to determine the threat is not credible. 

“Multiple campuses across the country were subject to similar coordinated threats today,” according to the alert.

The alert stated LUPD will be increasing their presence on campus out of caution.

Lehigh Police Chief Jason Schiffer said he received a phone call at 11:03 a.m. on Thursday from another university employee that had information about the email. 

He said the email was sent to “a few different offices” across campus, but Schiffer initially was notified about the email from the Office of Inclusive Excellence and Belonging. 

Schiffer said the email included text and an attachment of several pages that the writer referred to as a manifesto. The manifesto included threatening acts of violence against Black members of the Lehigh community. 

“What we learned in conjunction with the FBI and as part of the investigation was that the exact same correspondence was sent to other universities with their respective names inserted where Lehigh was in our communication,” Schiffer said. “So that’s one of the things that very clearly pointed to the fact that this was a hoax.”

With that information, Schiffer said Lehigh’s senior administration then decided to send out a Hawkwatch Alert. 

Schiffer said there are no known suspects and the number of recipients of the email are unknown at this time, but he said LUPD and the FBI are working to close the investigation. 

Schiffer said Lehigh University is one of “many” universities and colleges to receive this threat, and the emails were sent at different times to different institutions.