Barnard College staff receive racist robocalls after the death of Tessa Majors

Employees at Barnard College and possibly Columbia University have received racist robocalls following the death of Barnard student Tessa Majors. 

A Thursday statement from Columbia officials said that many faculty and staff at Barnard received robocalls from a white supremacist group and that the calls may have also been received by “a small number” of Columbia faculty and staff. 

“The contents of this message, related to the recent death of Tessa Majors, are abhorrent and viciously racist,” the statement said. “We take this attack on our values extremely seriously.”

The university is looking into the incident and is working with the New York Police Department to block the caller, the statement said.

In the Christmas Day calls, a man reportedly blames the 18-year-old’s death on race, The New York Times reported Friday. The recording reportedly was paid for by the Road to Power, a white supremacist website. 

Majors was a student at Barnard, a women’s college affiliated with Columbia. She was killed this month while walking in Manhattan’s Morningside Park. 

Police have said the slaying was part of an attempted robbery by three teenagers.