Female Law Faculty, Students Across the Country Are Getting Unsettling Texts

“It’s not fair, you women are taking over the world now.”

That was one of the texts Shanta Trivedi, an assistant law professor at the University of Baltimore, told Inside Higher Ed she received from an unknown number on Jan. 30. More texts arrived the same day, she said, including, “Law school isn’t fair for us men anymore. The women always outperform us now.”

She didn’t respond. “I was terrified, because it sounded like a student who was upset,” Trivedi said. “I also was teaching at night and my class happened to be all female, and I just felt very unnerved by the whole thing.”

Trivedi said she had a campus security officer stand outside her classroom that night, and the officer escorted her and her students to the parking garage after class. She simply told her students she had received a “weird” text, but she didn’t share its contents because she didn’t want them to feel threatened.

She soon learned she wasn’t the only female law professor at her university who had received one of these texts: A handful of others had all gotten them the same day or the next and reported them to an administrator. And she learned from another female law professor on social media that the University of Baltimore wasn’t the only institution affected—nor was the phenomenon confined to the East Coast.

In late February, Victoria J. Haneman, the Frank J. Kellegher Professor of Trusts and Estates at Nebraska’s Creighton University, posted a warning message on X: “Attn law professors I received these texts from an unknown number this morning.” She followed her message with screenshots. Multiple women interviewed by Inside Higher Ed said they became aware of the breadth of the issue through Haneman’s posts.

The screenshots suggested the sender knew whom he was texting. “Professor Haneman?” he asked. “Yes,” Haneman replied. “Law school isn’t fair for us men anymore, women always outperform us nowadays,” the unknown sender responded. Haneman asked him to identify himself or be blocked. He responded with “I admit you women have clearly won the battle of the sexes, us men are the losers” and “It’s not fair.”

In her February X post, Haneman wrote that she had “discovered that many other” women law professors, in at least three law schools, had received identical messages from two different numbers. Since then, she’s written that she’s continued receiving similar texts as they spread elsewhere. “I have been texted three separate times, and I know of women law professors at more than 30 law schools also contacted,” she wrote last week.

Among those who’ve been texted on their personal cellphones is Franita Tolson, Carl Mason Franklin Chair in Law and dean of the University of Southern California Gould School of Law.

“Dean Tolson?” the sender texted, according to copies of the texts Tolson provided. “Yes?” Tolson responded. The sender then identified himself as “Tyler” and posted statements similar to what other women received, writing, “Women are outperforming us in all fields of education, not just law school.”

“I am not adverse to hearing all viewpoints,” Tolson responded. “This is my cell though. Do you mind sharing how you got my info?” The sender responded, “I believe I saw it on a [sic] old CV or syllabus.” Tolson had a back-and-forth conversation with “Tyler” over text; when he referenced losing the “battle of the sexes,” Tolson responded, “It’s not a battle. I think accepting that is the first step.”

“I found it very strange and not threatening but definitely concerning, because he was reaching out to me on my personal cellphone,” Tolson told Inside Higher Ed. “I engaged because I didn’t want to antagonize this person who might know where I live.”

Tolson said the situation “became alarming” when she saw in Haneman’s X posts that others had received messages. “I don’t know how he got the personal information of so many different women,” she said. “It’s just odd as hell.”

The sender—if it is just one person—isn’t exclusively texting faculty members. Haneman, who didn’t provide Inside Higher Ed an interview for this article, wrote on X that she began receiving emails last week from female law school students saying they were also receiving the texts.

Alison Guernsey, a clinical law professor at the University of Iowa who was also texted, said, “The specific targeting of law faculty and now students is incredibly troubling.” She said that the “particular focus on women law professors and now apparently women law students, if not a threat, is certainly intimidating and silencing.”

An Ongoing Investigation?

Haneman wrote that the FBI is encouraging recipients to report the messages to tips.fbi.gov or by calling 1-800-CALL-FBI. The FBI told Inside Higher Ed that it would neither confirm nor deny that it’s investigating.

Law360 Pulse, an online outlet, reported back in February that the FBI was looking into these messages. As of Feb. 27, it reported, they “appear to have been sent to more than a dozen women in at least nine law schools in several states.” The story mentioned what appeared to be a sexual or mocking aspect to some of the texts, with one asking, “May I please buy a dirty pair of your work socks after a long day for $250?”

But that article didn’t include confirmation from the FBI that it’s actually investigating. Josh Fershee, dean of the Creighton University law school, where Haneman is a professor, told Inside Higher Ed that it appears law enforcement could be doing more.

“This is not a super-hidden master criminal,” Fershee said, and, “It’s a little frustrating” that he hasn’t been stopped. Creighton’s own public safety employees have gone as far in investigating as their “skill set and jurisdiction allows them to go,” he said.

Fershee said he last heard from the FBI on Aug. 28, and the bureau “indicated that they are monitoring it and it sounds like they are trying to narrow down who the offender is.” But the FBI also said the faculty members at his university who have been texted should contact local police, he said.

Haneman wrote on X that one student “called the person who sent the message to her. He stayed on the phone for 9 minutes. He said that he is a 2L [second-year] law student and repeated much of the rhetoric from the messages. He said that he had been ‘doing his research’ and had ‘accepted defeat.’ The male on the phone had a slight Southern accent.”

Inside Higher Ed called three numbers from which the texts have originated. Two numbers led to a “disconnected or no longer in service” message, but someone at the other number, which had texted both Guernsey and Trivedi, picked up.

“You really have the wrong number, man,” said the man on the other end, who had a Southern accent and said he was a physician in Hattiesburg, Miss. He declined to give his name, saying this article sounded like something “I don’t really want to be a part of.” He said the number Inside Higher Ed had called wasn’t his phone number at all and that he didn’t know how the call had connected to his number.

Multiple women have tried to get their texter to identify himself. Guernsey said she was worried it was someone at her law school and was concerned about their mental well-being. “At some point I said, I can’t help you if you don’t tell me your name,” she said. He didn’t, so Guernsey said she blocked the number—but then another number began texting her.

That struck her as strange, Guernsey said. “I’m really, really careful about my cellphone number, because I’m a federal criminal defense lawyer.”

Deborah Ahrens, vice dean for intellectual life and a law professor at Seattle University, said she didn’t get the texts—her oldest child did. Ahrens said she pays for her child’s phone on a family plan. The texts said, “Professor Ahrens?” and then, “It’s not fair.”

“What was creepy to me mostly was that they had texted my child,” Ahrens said. She said she told her child to block the number. “I want to know what list they’re working off of, how they got that list,” Ahrens said.

While some women didn’t respond at all to the texts, and others responded politely, one X user who said she’s a female law student handled things differently. “Hahaha I mean we weren’t allowed to even go to law school 100 years ago,” she told the texter, according to her screenshots.

The unknown sender later said, “I’ve accepted the fact that you women are taking over everything now” and “us men are the losers.” To this, the student replied with the word “truth” and an emoji saluting, plus a gold medal. The texter kept texting.