Opinion: The Black Girl Who Told The Unwanted Truth
posted by DorMiya Vance | March 8, 2022 | In News, Opinion“We acted quickly to ensure the health and safety of our university community. This university remains committed to our mission and vision of educating bright leaders all while making safety our first priority,” was one of the first statements Fayetteville State University Chancellor Darrell T. Allison released to media after the February 16 bomb threat to the FSU campus.
This statement is misleading.
On February 16, I did not learn about the bomb threat through FSU communication systems. I did not hear any announcements over FSU’s Outdoor Warning Sirens.
Instead, I was warned by a classmate coming into class saying: “There’s campus police going around telling people there’s a bomb threat.”
My professor made it clear in class that she did not hear that from anyone, and there was no notification from the school. This was true.
My classmates and I sat in confusion.
As this news settles, we begin to ask why we have not received warnings or notifications addressing this situation from the school?
Short answer: They were too busy rescheduling a basketball game to notify and follow proper protocols for the safety of the campus and the people on it.
Of course, I will explain why this is the short answer.
After my classmate made that announcement, my professor went across the hall to the Department of Sociology, where they “confirmed” the threat. However, no official notification from FSU’s emergency alert system was yet received.
We were informed of the “confirmation” from our professor, and I, as a concerned FSU student and the editor-in-chief of FSU’s student newspaper, took it upon myself to notify my fellow students through an Instagram live video soon after my professor talked to us.
At that moment, Fayetteville State University failed to protect and communicate with its students and staff from the threat of danger.
The university failed to follow correct protocol and did not “quickly” act to inform or evacuate those on the campus and around it.
Here are the facts:
The university sent out the first of two notifications at 1:19 p.m. on February 16, thirty minutes after the campus was informally informed about the threat and nearly twenty minutes after my report via Instagram live.
A second notification was emailed out at 1:33 p.m., nine minutes after I, again, updated students and staff from the campus police parking lot from Instagram.
Both notifications included this statement, “Tonight’s basketball game has been moved to Methodist University in the March F. Riddle center.”
FSU campus was not rendered “ALL CLEAR” until four hours later at 5:02 p.m. when students and staff were notified via email.
FSU’s Emergency Action Plan lists what a person does during a bomb threat on campus. So, why did the university do almost nothing to ensure the safety of its students and staff?
Why did the university ignore its protocols for evacuating during a bomb threat?
Only one exit was open this particular day at FSU. I, along with other classmates, noticed this.
Now, if FSU cared enough about campus safety, they would know that if a bomb threat occurs, you “do not block entrances, roadways, walkways, or fire hydrants,” and “remain in the external evacuation point until further instructions from University Police.”
There are four main gates on campus. Only one was open. Students living on campus were not “evacuated.” The email notification said, “residential students should shelter in place.”
Campus police told me they had “no updates” amid this threat.
Fayetteville police said FSU was “being vague” about this threat, and they were only there to “direct traffic.”
This situation should be the priority of FSU and our chancellor. It was not.
This threat was racially motivated and targeted to put fear into our Black and Brown students during the only month Black History is nationally recognized. Ridiculous.
Faculty and University professors have expressed growing concern over what happened on
February 16.
A FayStateFaculty post, a blog run by members of the FSU American Association of University Professors, criticized FSU for their lack of commitment to campus safety as an HBCU and their swift efforts to relocate the home basketball games.
“…FSU did not take the threat seriously or put safety and security first,” according to the post.
The Black community has fought so hard to have civil rights and colleges to call our own. To me, FSU has been influenced by money, and now its focus is keeping up an image of the school, appealing to the military-connected students, veterans, and low-income families.
This event is one instance where FSU has failed to serve its campus correctly, but I have more to come.
My people, Black people, deserve better from our HBCU. I, a paying student, deserve better.
The Voice reached out to FSU communications for a response and according to the Office of Strategic Communications, FSU now has a crisis plan in place for future events such as the February 16th bomb threat.
“We now have the same crisis plan and SOP as North Carolina A&T,” according to Joy Cook, Associate Vice-Chancellor of the Office of Strategic Communication.
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