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Racist Email Attack

Dear Members of the Harvard Community, 

Overnight thousands of our community members received a hate-filled, racist email threatening African Americans. The message was sent from Equity Prime Mortgage. If you have received it or find it in your spam filter, please do not open it.

If you have received and read the message, I am sorry. It is abhorrent and flies in the face of everything we stand for. Most importantly, its violent and abusive language comes at a time when many members of our community are already suffering deeply. I know I speak for everyone when I affirm that we stand together: A racist attack against one of us is an attack against all of us.

HUIT and HUPD, as well as industry-leading service providers, are investigating. Thus far, we have learned that the email services of Equity Prime Mortgage were compromised, and the large-scale effort also targeted at least two of our peer institutions. We work continuously to try to protect and insulate members of our community from such vile and offensive messages, but our ability to do so is limited by the technology available to us—work made even more difficult when external vendors are compromised.

As a community we must stand strong and support each other, especially when others would seek to divide us. They cannot—and will not—succeed.

Sincerely,

Larry