Hateful packages sent to CRGS faculty
On Sept. 29, the Critical Race, Gender and Sexualities Studies department received four packages addressed to various faculty members, each containing the same book with misogynistic and homophobic content.
“I would characterize it as a hate-filled manifesto,” said CRGS professor Maral Attallah. “It was over a hundred pages, the last few pages were the same rant over and over again. There were various chapters just on the groups or individuals beliefs, the opening came off as end-of-days type rant in the beginning.”
CRGS Department Chair Ramona Bell stated in an email that herself, Attallah and Paul Micheal Atienza received the packages. It is still unconfirmed about who the fourth package was sent to.
The packages had Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts’ as the return address of all four packages. They were collected by the Dean of the College of Arts Humanities & Social Sciences Jeff Crane and then handed over to the University Police Department, who passed it up to higher levels of law enforcement.
“The case is suspended on our end, we forwarded it to the United States Secret Service at the beginning of the month (October),” said UPD Interim Sergeant J. A. Martin III.
According to CRGS faculty members, one of the books was a self-published book that had a white-cover and red writing on the cover.
Attallah provided a particular section of the book that caught her attention. The book stated, “There are no more dead-weight courses such as feminism and gender studies most of these professors and anyone who has taught, train there child to be trans will be going into slavery.”
At first Atienza believed that it was a joke. “I thought it was hilarious at first and then I went to class. And then later on I started getting emails from my other fellow professor colleagues saying we should probably watch out, this is dangerous, there could be things on the package which I never thought about,” said Atienza. “I was like oh shoot, I was not careful. I was actually more thinking how funny to receive this package and wanted to share it with my students to say ‘look at the things we get for teaching about CRGS’.”
As far as Attallah is aware, the CRGS department has dealt with vandalism, graffiti in the department hallways, office doors vandalized, and students have taken her classes to purposely disrupt them.
UPD Media Bulletin on general incidents doesn’t have detailed records for each department. Incidents that are released on the bulletin are only available after thirty days. To gain access to more information on incidents or reports a person would have to file a request to UPD.
According to Atienza, he hasn’t experienced any other incidents of hate since joining CPH faculty in August. The CRGS professors who received the packages believe that incidents like this come with the job of teaching about the intersectionalities of ethnic studies, women and multicultural queer studies.
She also believes that events like this are not surprising, but is concerned of the individual knowing the location of their office.
Attallah said, “It’s something I’m always conscious of just because of what I have to deal with and literally because I’m teaching these topics.”
