The university said in a statement that it fired the officers for “egregious violations of the university’s code of conduct.”
“Every member of the Hampton University community must adhere to the university’s code of conduct,” the university said in an emailed statement. “After a full investigation, it was determined that the officers shared misogynistic, racist and other offensive remarks via social media.” The university said it had “zero tolerance for such behavior.”
The Hampton University Police Department employed 27 sworn officers in 2018, according to state figures. The department also employs 10 “security officers,” according to its website.
It was unclear Thursday what positions the fired officers had held. The university did not provide any further information about the violations or the identities, ranks or tenure of the officers. A person who answered the department’s phone Thursday evening said no one was available to speak about the firings.
The announcement came amid growing scrutiny over police conduct on social media and the prejudice such online posts might expose.
In June, the Plain View Project released a database that showed current and former police officers using content that was racist, misogynist, Islamophobic or otherwise biased. The project, which was founded by a lawyer, looked at social media activity from eight police departments across the United States.
That project prompted investigations and repercussions in Philadelphia, Phoenix, St. Louis and elsewhere. The Hampton University firings did not appear to be connected to the project.
Earlier in the week, two police officers in Gretna, Louisiana, were fired, four days after one of them referred to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., as a “vile idiot” on Facebook and suggested that she should be shot.
Hampton University was founded in 1868 as Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute and is known as one of the top historically black universities in the United States. Booker T. Washington earned a degree from the institution in 1875, and President Barack Obama delivered a commencement speech there in 2010.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.