FBI won’t share updates one year after racist texts sent to high school and college students

Federal law enforcement continues to remain quiet on the status of an investigation into racist text messages sent to Americans, including high school and college students across the country, following the 2024 presidential election.

Black Americans were sent texts telling them to go pick cotton while Hispanic Americans reportedly were threatened with deportation.

The FBI has shared no information or updates about its investigation. The College Fix emailed twice in the past three weeks, but received automated responses indicating the government shutdown could delay a response. However, the agency’s media team continues to work despite the shutdown. 

“The FBI’s policy is to neither confirm nor deny if we are conducting an investigation,” the agency told The Fix in June. The agency in fact announces investigations all the time.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, who blamed the attacks on President Trump and expressed disappointment with the FBI’s initial silence, continues to demand transparency and information on the attacks.

“As of now, the NAACP has not received any formal updates from federal law enforcement. We continue to call for transparency and timely communication regarding the progress of the investigation,” Derrick Lewis told The Fix via email.

He is the youth and college director for the black advocacy group. “Our priority remains ensuring that students and community members know their safety concerns are being taken seriously and that justice is being pursued with urgency,” Lewis said.

“We’d like to see clear, factual updates on the status of the investigation, what steps have been taken, what progress has been made, and how federal law enforcement is collaborating with local authorities and campus officials,” Lewis told The Fix. “Transparency isn’t just about accountability; it’s about reassurance. Students, parents, and the broader community deserve to know that this matter is being taken seriously, it’s being addressed thoroughly and with integrity.”

Lewis said the group “developed an incident reporting form” for “any campus/community incidents across the country.”

A law enforcement group said usually there are not too many details shared about investigations.

“Basically all that should be shared [in a case like this] are government dockets filed publicly such as charging documents,” Nancy Savage of the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI, told The Fix via email. She is a former FBI agent.

When asked what information the FBI should share with the public in terms of the details of the crime and the suspects, Savage explained that full transparency was unlikely to occur.

“This type of information becomes public during the trials as the judge allows,” she told The Fix. “Evidentiary value is weighed by the judge with probity value.”

“Publicity is based on investigative needs, public safety, etc,” Savage said.

At least one state leader previously announced his own plans to look into the texts.

Ohio’s Attorney General David Yost announced an “inquiry” into the text messages in Nov. 2024, as reported by the Dayton Daily News. 

However, his communications director, Bethany McCorkle, has not responded to multiple media inquiries in the past month, including three emails and a phone message asking for an investigation update. 

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