Cal Poly Chinese Student Association was ‘Zoom bombed’ with racist slurs, symbols
Members of the Cal Poly Chinese Student Association were verbally assaulted during a weekly Zoom meeting by about 20 people who joined in uninvited.
According to club president Rocco Costanzo, the May 12 meeting was about to formally begin when 20 or so unknown individuals joined the group and began flooding the online video call with racial slurs and racist symbols — a practice often referred to as “Zoom bombing.”
Many people started yelling about the coronavirus pandemic and telling students to “go back where you came from,” said Costanzo, a statistics sophomore.
“As it was happening I was super shocked that it happened and I just kind of stood there for over a minute, I just didn’t have any words to say,” he said. “I felt super paralyzed, I was trying to figure out what was going on.”
Costanzo said he regained control of the meeting and quickly ended the call. The incident happened in about a five-minute span, he said.
“I think the attack was actively targeted toward Asian and Chinese students and a lot of people in the meeting felt attacked by what the Zoom bombers said,” he said.
The students filed a report with the Cal Poly Police Department.
Cal Poly spokesperson Matt Lazier said the university’s information security officer investigated the incident and found nearly 20 uninvited people on the call from around the world. The people have not been identified at this time.
The university reached out to the club and offered support upon learning of the attack, according to Lazier.
“We stand with our students and denounce all hateful language and action aimed at any member of our campus community,” Lazier wrote in an email to The Tribune. “University officials were appalled to learn of the invasion of our CSA club’s virtual meeting and the offensive language and imagery used.”
The Chinese Student Association is an inclusive cultural organization. Since Cal Poly moved to an online spring quarter, the students have been hosting their weekly meetings on Zoom.
Costanzo said he feels as though the attack was meant to intimidate students of Asian decent at a time of global crisis.
The Chinese Student Association released a statement regarding the incident to inform both the members of their club who weren’t in attendance and as a reminder to other clubs to secure their meetings, Costanzo said.
“Shocked, angry, and sad do not even come close to how we feel. We are sorry to our general members who had to endure these hateful words, especially when we are living in an era where xenophobia is still rampant in our society,” the CSA board stated.
Moving forward, Costanzo said the club will host Zoom meetings with the waiting room feature on, so people must be admitted into the call before they can enter.
He also said, in some cases, the students may plan to have password-protected meetings.
Lazier said the university has now shared security information to student organizations to help prevent any incidents like this moving forward.
“We want to make sure that something like this doesn’t happen to another club or even a class,” Costanzo said. “I don’t think anyone else should go through what we went through.”
