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The University of Pennsylvania is investigating after acknowledging that members of its community received a “highly offensive, hurtful message” that seemingly came from the school. The vulgar email in question was sent on Friday morning and appeared to be on the letterhead of the university’s Graduate School of Education.
“We got hacked,” the email’s subject line said, according to a copy obtained by Fox News Digital.
A copy of the email showed that the sender urged recipients to “stop giving” money to the university. It also attacked the school as a “dogs— elitist institution full of woke r——.”
“We have terrible security practices and are completely unmeritocratic. We hire and admit morons because we love legacies, donors and unqualified affirmative action admits,” the email read.
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The University of Pennsylvania is investigating the origin of a fraudulent email sent to members of its campus community. (Fox News Digital)
A Penn spokesperson told Fox News Digital that the emails were “obviously” fake and “highly offensive.”
“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. The University’s Office of Information Security is aware of the situation, and our Incident Response team is actively addressing it,” a Penn spokesperson told Fox News Digital.
The university reportedly told KYW-TV that it was not hacked but was looking into the source of the crass message. The spokesperson did not immediately address the hacking allegation when reached by Fox News Digital.
The university put out a similar statement on Facebook in which it acknowledged emails and said the issue was being addressed.
“Fraudulent emails are currently being circulated that appear to come from a Penn Graduate School of Education account with the subject ‘We got hacked (Action Required)’ or similar,” the university wrote on Facebook. “The University’s Office of Information Security is aware of the situation, and our Incident Response team is actively addressing it.”
A sign for the University of Pennsylvania on campus on Friday, Dec. 8, 2023. (Michelle Gustafson/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
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“All of the emails are incredibly offensive and in no way reflective of Penn or Penn GSE’s mission or values. We sincerely apologize for the harm this has caused and is causing. Over and above the inconvenience of getting your inboxes spammed, these emails are hurtful and upsetting,” the university wrote on Facebook.
Elizabeth Cooper, the school’s IT help desk manager, also addressed the message in an email sent to members of Penn’s Annenberg School for Communication, The Daily Pennsylvanian, a University of Pennsylvania student newspaper,reported.
People walk by a sign reading “Penn Commons” at the University of Pennsylvania. (Michelle Gustafson/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
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“These emails are being received by individuals outside of UPenn as well,” Cooper wrote. “It appears that some email list, which is beyond our control, was accessed by malicious individuals who then sent out these messages.”
The Daily Pennsylvanian noted that the Penn Medicine Academic Computing Services and the School of Nursing’s IT services also sent out messages acknowledging the offensive email.