BALTIMORE — Johns Hopkins is responding to a racist act that occurred near campus this week.
According to the University, late Thursday afternoon, Johns Hopkins University was notified by general contractor Plano-Coudon that a noose had been found earlier in the day at a construction site in an off-campus building owned by the University.
The school says they've referred the potential hate crime to federal law enforcement and have launched their own investigation as well.
“Johns Hopkins University condemns this act of hate,” President Ronald J. Daniels said in a message Friday to the university community. “We find such racist imagery horrifying and repugnant and a direct threat to the Black community at Johns Hopkins and in Baltimore, standing in stark opposition to the values of equity, justice, and humanity to which we are firmly committed.”
“We take this matter extremely seriously,” said Daniel Ennis, Johns Hopkins University’s senior vice president for administration and finance. “We have shut down this job site until further notice and will do everything within our power to make sure our community is free from hate and intimidation. Acts like this have no place in our society. We encourage anyone with information about this incident to contact Campus Safety and Security at 410-516-4600.”
“We know that incidents like this – wherever they happen – can cause or reinforce trauma for members of our community, especially our Black and Brown colleagues, students, and faculty,” said Katrina Caldwell, Johns Hopkins University’s vice provost for diversity and inclusion and chief diversity officer. “That this has happened at a moment when there has been such pain over racially motivated violence means we must lean in and offer the support our community needs now and that we must become better, more informed allies in the urgent work that needs to be done to fight against racism in all its forms.”
