I'm a prof at a southern school. I think I know what this is about
I see this happen every couple of years here, and in talking with my colleagues, I get similar isolated reports. I would bet 1000 dollars that this young man had the audacity to be dating a white student (maybe he just talked to the wrong girl), and that she was either pined for, or was the girlfriend of, a racist piece of **** that lives in that dorm. I think this is a personal vendetta against this particular young man, and his ethnicity becomes an easy and very painful target because he happens to be black, and whoever has the beef is willing to play that card. It is terrible for him, because you better believe his fear is real, it is terrible for the school (although they should know where to look for the responsible party) because no matter how harmonious the campus might be, an incident like this will blow things sky high. In OM's case, given their history, this one is going to fester and they had better be having some come to Jesus events and make it absolutely clear this crap isn't going to be tolerated.