On Friday morning, alumni, students, staff, and community members connected to the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) began receiving disturbing emails from hackers who claimed to be from the university’s Graduate School of Education (GSE).
The email, sent from official-looking university accounts, said, “We have terrible security practices and are completely unmeritocratic. We love breaking federal rules like FERPA (all your data will be leaked).”
Screenshots show that the message came from multiple legitimate @upenn.edu addresses, including accounts linked to the GSE and individuals posing as senior university officials. Some recipients reported getting the email more than once from different senders. (The article’s author, a Penn alumna and former staff member, said she personally received the message three times.)
Penn spokesperson Ron Ozio confirmed to TechCrunch that the university is aware of the issue and is working on it.
“A fraudulent email has been circulated that appears to come from the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education. This is obviously a fake, and nothing in the highly offensive, hurtful message reflects the mission or actions of Penn or of Penn GSE,” Ozio said.
The hackers claimed their goal was to discourage alumni from donating to the university, writing in the email, “Please stop giving us money.”
This cyberattack comes shortly after UPenn rejected a proposal from the White House. The Biden administration offered federal funding in exchange for universities agreeing to specific political conditions under the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education.”
What the White House Compact Demands
The proposed compact asks universities to:
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End affirmative action in hiring and admissions
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Freeze tuition for five years
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Provide free tuition to students in “hard sciences”
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Limit international undergraduate enrollment to 15%
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Require SAT or similar standardized test scores for admission
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Punish academic departments that “belittle or suppress conservative ideas”
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Enforce policies that would restrict or marginalize transgender and gender non-conforming students
Penn, along with six other universities, refused to sign.
In a public letter to Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, Penn President J. Larry Jameson argued that the compact goes against university values.
“[The compact] preferences and mandates protections for the communication of conservative thought alone,” he wrote.
Jameson stated that these terms conflict with academic freedom and the diversity of viewpoints that are essential to universities and democracy.
