Introduction to the Incident

Higher education is facing challenges, and New York University (NYU) recently experienced a unique attack. The university’s website was hacked on Saturday morning, resulting in its homepage being defaced for several hours. The hacker displayed racial slurs and graphs purportedly showing test scores of students broken down by race.

Details of the Hack

The hack was carried out by an individual who uses a racial slur as their handle on the platform X, specifically "@bestnggy." This person hijacked the university’s homepage and displayed a message stating, "On June 29, 2023, racial affirmative action in college admissions was ruled illegal. Computer Nggy Exploitation (CNE) reveals NYU continued anyway." Following this message, a graph was shown that supposedly illustrated the average SAT scores, ACT scores, and grade point average of NYU applicants admitted to the university, categorized by race. The hacker also provided links to what they claimed was "raw data" from NYU’s data warehouse, with personally identifiable information redacted.

Hacker’s Claims and Previous Activities

The hacker claimed on X that the data was directly obtained from NYU’s own data warehouse and that they only posted the bare minimum required to prove the university’s alleged violation of the law. Furthermore, the hacker took responsibility for a previous breach at the University of Minnesota in 2023, which reportedly exposed millions of social security numbers. The hacker’s apparent claim is that NYU admits students based on race, suggesting that some students would not be admitted if judged solely on test scores and GPA. This theory has been picked up by various accounts on X, which have used the data to imply that NYU gives preference to students based on race.

Analysis of the Data

However, the data does not support the hacker’s claims. As NYU is a test-optional school, students who submit test results are self-selecting, meaning they only submit scores they believe will benefit their application. Moreover, the scores do not account for the significant wealth disparity in standardized testing, where children from wealthy backgrounds tend to outperform those from lower-income households due to the resources available to them. This disparity is a key reason for diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, which aim to provide opportunities to capable individuals from all backgrounds who might otherwise be overlooked.

NYU’s Response and Context

NYU releases its own data on incoming classes, which showed a decline in historically underrepresented minority groups for the class of 2028 following the Supreme Court’s decision to end affirmative action in college admissions. The actions of the hacker and those who have spread the data appear to be motivated by a desire to punish universities, possibly inspired by the Trump administration’s crackdown on higher education institutions. Despite their claims of advocating for the rule of law, these individuals are primarily driven by racist sentiments.