Editor's note: Tweets embedded in this story contain racist slurs and disturbing language.
IU’s chapter of the NAACP was Zoombombed with racist slurs Thursday evening during the Student Involvement Fair, according to a Twitter thread.
Along with writing and saying slurs in the Zoom meeting, people wrote “Fuck the NAACP” in the chat. Several Black students were called out by name by the Zoombombers, who also mocked George Floyd’s death and the phrase “officer, I can’t breathe.”
Junior Ja’Nay Coleman, secretary of IU’s NAACP, said she tried to take screenshots and remove everyone that was Zoombombing.
Coleman said IU reached out to her and told her to fill out a bias incident report and said it would talk with IUPD about it.
IU Bloomington’s Twitter also responded to her Twitter thread about the event.
“This is unacceptable and we’re so sorry that this happened to you and others in the meeting,” the tweet said. “We’re looking into the incident right now and finding ways on how we can prevent this from happening in the future.”
Coleman said another IU organization, Campus Curls and Coils, was also Zoombombed with racist slurs. The organization tweeted about it and will be filing a report against the individuals.
Senior Faith Griton, president and co-founder of Campus Curls and Coils, said about 30 people Zoombombed CCC’s and the NAACP’s meetings. She said the Zoombombers also said racist slurs and mocked George Floyd in CCC’s meeting as well as made sexual noises and cat-called its members.
Griton said one of the Zoombombers said he was a student at IU.
“Even if they weren’t IU students, if IU says that they care about their students like they continue to say they do, then they should care that this happens,” Griton said. “They should want to have an investigation to make sure that none of them were IU people.”
Coleman said she hopes IU does something soon so other students feel safe on campus.
“IU’s always talking about ‘IU is home’ but incidents like this show that IU is not home,” Coleman said. “Because being a Black student on campus, we shouldn’t have to go through this. This is our campus too, we deserve to be on this campus.”
This story was updated at 4:21 p.m. Friday to include statements from Faith Griton.
