By Jodie Ng, news correspondent

Hundreds of Harvard University students, predominantly female Asian-Americans, received an email containing a death threat on Oct. 3.

The racist threat read:  “I will come tomorrow in Harvard University and shoot all of you, each one of you all Harvard students, I will kill you individually. I’ll be back tomorrow at 11 clock [sic] in your [expletive] university and will kill you, you [expletive]. Even Mark Zuckerberg of facebook [sic] I will kill. I’m going to kill every one of you. I promise you, slit eyes.”

Sarah Fellay, a junior social studies major at Harvard, said that quickly after the email surfaced, there was heightened security.

“Most of the gates to Harvard Yard were closed, and the two that were open were guarded by the Harvard University Police Department [HUPD],” Fellay said.

According to Fellay, some students were terrified while others assumed it was a simple prank.

“I never thought that someone who would actually come do a school shooting would warn everyone about it, so I didn’t feel like it posed a direct threat,” Fellay said. “I do feel, like a lot of people on campus, that the administration could’ve handled it better. There was absolutely no discussion… of the racist nature of the email and the fact that it was very specifically targeted Asian women.”

The campus immediately began investigating and notified other law agencies, including the FBI. The manner in which the list of recipients was compiled remains unknown.

Northeastern student Joy Li, a third-year international business major and Chinese minor, believes the act was horrible but unsurprising.

“In terms of being targeted as a female Asian-American, it is awful and quite infuriating that anyone would ever use race and gender to enact violence,” Li said. “But it is not shocking at all because in this day and age, with technology, such things are easy to do because any Joe Schmoe can do it. It’s just a click away.”

Sophomore student Asia Williams felt “super uncomfortable and really unsafe” due to Harvard’s closeness.

“I’m half Asian. It’s the ethnicity I define myself most with so I was honestly so offended,” Williams, a human-services major, said. “Lots of times I sit down and think that we’ve crossed the whole bridge of racism… but then I see these kind of things were a certain race is targeted and realize how much it’s so embedded in our culture.”

Harvard’s Office of Diversity did not respond to request for comment.

In the email, the writer identified herself as Stephanie Nguyen and claimed to live in Boston. When it was discovered that the email originated overseas, an apology followed the initial threat.

“It was my little brother who has written the e-mail,” said the message. “I’m not a killer, not a killer, please tell your dirketor so…To all Harvard students and staff I’m sorry what wrote my brother please I will bear the responsibility please call back all media [sic].”

 Photo courtesy James MH, Creative Commons