Department Of Education Unveils Grants For HBCUs Impacted By Bomb Threats

The news was announced on Thursday, and Tougaloo and Fayetteville State will receive $420K and $80K in Project School Emergency Response to Violence (Project SERV) funds.

“As Secretary of Education, I want to make it abundantly clear that the Biden-Harris administration will not tolerate bomb threats or any efforts to terrorize students of color and everyone who lives, works, and studies at our Historically Black colleges and Universities,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said, according to The Hill.

“The bomb threats made against HBCUs earlier this year not only strained institutions’ resources by prompting costly campus lockdowns, class cancellations, and law enforcement activities, but shattered students’ sense of safety and heightened anxiety throughout these campus communities,” Cardona added.

As Blavity previously reported, numerous HBCUs all across the country have been receiving bomb threats all year long, and the situation started back around the start of Black History Month.

“The Black community has long been plagued by threats of domestic terrorism against them in their schools, homes, and houses of worship. As we enter Black History Month, it is all too concerning that we are seeing a resurgence of these threats,” the NAACP wrote on its website in response to the news.

Numerous other HBCUs received bomb threats throughout 2022, and Howard University — known as the Harvard of HBCUs — was hit with two threats less than a month ago, as Blavity reported.

While all of these bomb threats were unsubstantiated, they have seriously strained the HBCU community and its resources.

It’s also worth adding that, despite a large-scale investigation being launched and the FBI announcing that it had identified an array of juvenile suspects, no arrests have been made.

With the bomb threat issue not being resolved, administrators are stepping in to help finance expansions to mental health support services, trauma recovery programs and campus security officers.

NEW: The Education Dept. awarded two Project SERV grants to HBCUs that received bomb threats. Typically they range from $50,000 to $150,000

— Tougaloo College: $420,000

— Fayetteville State University: $80,000

I wrote about Tougaloo last monthhttps://t.co/ewpkRy49pT

— Bianca Quilantan (@biancaquilan) September 15, 2022

Despite Tougaloo and Fayetteville State being the only HBCUs to receive a shoutout in the ED’s Thursday announcement, administrators are working to get funding to even more institutions.

“We will continue to work with our partners across the administration — using a whole-of-government approach — to make sure HBCU leaders have access to all available federal resources to respond to threats of violence, shore up campus security, expand their infrastructure and capacity, and provide students with the safe and nurturing learning environments that HBCUs are known for,” Cardona noted, The Hill reports.