The FBI alerted Howard University officials to an anonymous online threat against its students late last night, the school’s president, Wayne Frederick, told CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer today.

Describing the threat as “highly unusual,” Frederick said Howard is taking the threat “very seriously” and has increased security on campus as well as at Metro stations surrounding Howard. The Metropolitan Police Department is also assisting.

“It’s something that we also denounce very heavily as well: the language that was used and the rhetoric around hatred that we think is absolutely inappropriate,” Frederick said, referring to the racist language in the threat. “Our students are very active and they stood in support of the [protesting] students at Missouri University, which we also support. And we do see this as a growing national problem.”

Schools must be made inclusive, Frederick said, so that “students can feel comfortable participating in higher education in various environments.” He added that “there’s a growing frustration” among students of color in regards to “how they’re being treated on campuses.”

“So I am going to invite major university presidents around the country to Howard’s campus for a national dialogue on this issue,” he said. “And we will invite the students in as well to give feedback first and foremost as to what they’re experiencing and why. And then I think we collectively have to come up with solutions to ensure that this works as best as it can because we have to preserve the opportunity for students to go to school anywhere that they would like to go to school in this country.”

Photo by Darrow Montgomery