On the first day of Black History Month, Nylah Tolliver’s schedule at Xavier University included three classes followed by dance team practice in the afternoon.

Her day was upended before it began. She woke up Feb. 1 to an email alert saying the school received a bomb threat earlier in the day. A bomb wasn’t found on campus, but the threat led to a reshuffling of classes.

Disappointed, but not surprised, Tolliver instead spent the first day of February lamenting “history repeating itself,” she told USA TODAY. …

Spelman College, a historically Black women’s college in Atlanta, has responded to three bomb threats so far in 2022, according to the school’s Twitter . No devices were found following thorough campus sweeps.

Sophia Parker, who is a Spelman fellow for Common Cause, a nonpartisan group that defends voting rights, said she thinks there’s been “a lack of action taken on behalf of Black Americans” when threats are made against them. …

While the investigations continue, students and faculty are back on campus.

Parker and her fellow Spelman students plan to reach out to elected officials this month. The threats Spelman and other HBCUs faced were, in part, caused by pushes to ban discussions about racism from classrooms , she said.

“A lot of my peers who aren’t even that politically involved, at least not as much as I am, are talking about wanting to get involved, just like writing letters to our senators, our representatives, people who are pushing these bills,” said Parker, who said she worked on the Biden-Harris 2020 presidential campaign as a Democratic National Committee fellow.