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The Tufts Daily
Where you read it first | Thursday, March 28, 2024

Monaco issues statement condemning 'unacceptable' interruption of Zoom meeting

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Braker Hall is pictured on Oct. 1, 2017.

University President Anthony Monaco announced in an email to the Tufts community on Tuesday evening that a Monday evening Zoom meeting was interrupted in a manner he described as “abhorrent and unacceptable.”

Monaco did not include details of the situation, citing a desire to protect the safety of those who were in the meeting and to avoid giving the culprits the attention they are seeking.

“We will work with law enforcement to ensure the perpetrators are appropriately charged, and if they are members of our community, they will also be held to account through our disciplinary processes,” Monaco wrote in the email.

This email comes days after Monaco announced a racist incident that occurred while Karl Reid, executive director of the National Society of Black Engineers, was giving a presentation for the School of Engineering’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Colloquium Series. 

Monaco also included steps provided by Tufts Technology Services to increase the security of Zoom meetings, including enabling the waiting room feature, updating Zoom often and checking security settings. 

He affirmed that the Zoom incident was not the fault of those involved but said that moving forward, the Tufts community should use the information from Tufts Technology Services to increase Zoom meeting security. 

“While Zoom has been a useful tool during the pandemic, its very nature of allowing open and free discourse regardless of where we may be on the planet has directly led to these horrible incidents,” Monaco said.