Frustrations mount after racist Zoom bombings affecting Gonzaga, WSU minority groups

Local and federal authorities are still investigating how multiple people last month invaded a virtual Gonzaga University Black Student Union meeting with racial and homophobic slurs and imagery.

Likewise, Washington State University Police remain on the hunt for whoever shared racist imagery and slurs during a WSU Black Student Union meeting in September. Less than two months later, WSU’s Filipino American Student Association dealt with a similar intrusion.

Students, faculty and investigators say the events, known as Zoom bombings, were among the more frustrating parts of virtual college learning this fall. The sentiment has been shared by others, including other student minority associations, as Zoom bombings have been a nationwide virtual business hazard during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Locally, the events have put greater scrutiny on university race relations. Following the Gonzaga and WSU events, college administrators have pushed Zoom security protocols and other safety measures amid calls for action from affected students.

At the top of the lists for the Black student unions are thorough investigations. While area authorities are working toward that end, police cite several challenges in figuring out who’s responsible.

Navigating digital footprints

As of late last week, the Spokane Police Department and the FBI were still working to research the origin of Gonzaga’s Zoom-bombing event.

Terry Preuninger, a Spokane Police Department spokesman, said the FBI is taking the lead on the Gonzaga investigation. He described these types of investigations as “complex.”

In the university’s latest update on the investigation, college officials said Gonzaga’s Information Technology Services Department, Campus Security and Public Safety are supporting as needed. The perpetrators have not yet been identified.

Perpetrators in such cases could face both civil and criminal penalties, said WSU Police Chief Bill Gardner. Gardner said authorities typically consider harassment or malicious harassment charges at levels based on the severity of the crime.

For WSU Police, Gardner said investigations typically start with a probe of the college’s internal systems. From there, investigators submit warrants to involved tech companies for information.

As of late last week, that warrant process is where WSU Police stood with the investigation into the September incident involving the Black Student Union. Gardner said Zoom has been very cooperative.

“That’s really interesting to watch. It makes for good coordination and cooperation,” Gardner said. He added, “There is no one established trail or methodology, but there are some pretty well-worn paths.”

Determining the perpetrators’ computer literacy can be challenging, Gardner said, adding that hiding yourself on the internet can be easy – if you know what you’re doing.

In past investigations, Gardner said WSU Police has reached out to other statewide and Pac-12 Conference schools to discuss potentially related events.

“These are frustrating cases, and we’re working as hard as we can to find somebody behind this,” Gardner said. “The technical capability of people on the internet is a wild and wooly area. It’s easy to get frustrated, and we’re as frustrated as other people about it.”

Race issues come into focus

WSU’s Black Student Union no longer posts Zoom links on social media, said Mikayla Makle, president of WSU’s Black Student Union.

Makle said people now have to RSVP with a WSU email address. Once in the meeting, attendees are kept in a waiting room until they are confirmed from the guest list.

The Filipino American Student Association has taken similar measures after three individuals who didn’t have WSU emails accessed a Nov. 3 association meeting, said Stephen Bischoff, the group’s staff adviser.

Bischoff said one had a profile picture of a word cloud of racist messaging. Another, when the group was asked what their costumes were for Halloween this year, responded with George Floyd, the Black man who was killed by Minneapolis police in May. Bischoff said WSU Civil Rights and Compliance and the Office of the Dean of Students did a follow-up with the students.

A side effect of the new protocols has been lowered attendance, said Makle, who added that the union wants to see more transparency from police with the investigation.

“I just feel like the school is not covering anything that’s happening with their multicultural organizations at all,” she said.

The waiting room feature and required registration were among Zoom security recommendations pushed by WSU’s Academic Outreach and Innovation team when virtual learning started earlier this year, university officials said.

“When something awful like that happens, that’s a pretty natural feeling,” Gardner said of the Black Student Union’s concerns. “I don’t think it’s a matter of prioritizing because we’re working this case as hard as we can, and there is not a prioritization scale or matrix that we use on something like this. It’s an important case and it’s an important problem.”

At Gonzaga, Vice Provost of Student Affairs Kent Porterfield said the university’s IT department sent Zoom security communications in April through “Morning Mail,” a daily campus email. While noting that Morning Mail might not be the most effective way to communicate that information to students, Porterfield also said the university did not carry that guidance into the fall “in the way that we probably should have.”

“I think it’s very important … that this has not been, nor was it the fault, of the (Black Student Union), whether they missed a morning email, whether they missed Morning Mail,” said Phillip Tyler, Gonzaga’s crime prevention and education officer. “These individuals that perpetrated this crime are the problem, and we are working diligently now to ensure that they will not be a problem in the future.”

Tyler and Porterfield made their statements during a closed virtual town hall Monday attended by more than 500 students, staff, alumni, parents and other Gonzaga community members, according to the university. A recording was posted on the university’s website Wednesday.

The town hall was demanded of the college by the Black Student Union in the wake of the Zoom bombing. The union is also calling for Gonzaga to provide a therapist of color and enact tangible change to protect students of color.

During Monday’s forum, Gonzaga President Thayne McCulloh acknowledged that the town hall emerged not just from the Zoom bombing, but from “feelings of not feeling safe and of not feeling equally valued, or seen or heard,” he said, expressed by the university’s minority groups throughout the year.

“The Zoom attack against BSU is the latest triggering event in yet another reminder that our efforts at Gonzaga to protect and support our students, while well-intentioned, have simply not been enough,” he said.

In moving forward, members of Gonzaga’s Black Student Union say there’s still much work to be done on that front.

“There’s only so much progress you can make at once, and I feel like there was a lot of defense going on,” Jackie Gaither, vice president of the Gonzaga BSU, said of Monday’s town hall. “It wasn’t really addressing the issue so much. It was really being defensive. I feel like this was a baby step toward something else.”