Kayla-Simone McKelvey, an outspoken activist for racial equality, pleaded guilty earlier this week to posting anonymous, racist tweets threatening fellow Kean students and faculty in November.
NBC New York reported that the 24-year-old former student from Union Township, New Jersey faces up to 90 days in jail and a fine of $82,000 for creating a false public alarm.
“As a diverse academic community, we wholeheartedly respect and support activism, however, no cause or issue gives anyone the right to threaten the safety of others,” Kean University said in a December statement. “We hope this information will begin to bring a sense of relief and security back to the campus community”
According to the Independent, McKelvey attended a rally at Kean in solidarity with the University of Missouri protests that had sparked student movements across the U.S. Prosecutors said that Ms. McKelvey left the rally early, went to the university library, and used one of the computers to tweet from an anonymous Twitter account.
One of these messages posted to Twitter threatened to “shoot every black woman and male,” according to NBC New York. The university took down the Twitter the next day, but students remained afraid of walking around campus and even leaving their dorms.
McKelvey was the president of the Pan-African Student Union, and apparently used the tweets to rally the protesters further. However, the issues at Mizzou were more than enough to spark hundreds of protests across the country—there is definitely no need and no good reason to falsely scare your fellow students and threaten their safety.