Racists Target Black DC Teens In NASA Competition: Reports

WASHINGTON, DC -- It was supposed to be a wonderful accomplishment: Mikayla Sharrieff, India Skinner, and Bria Snell, students at Benjamin Banneker High School in D.C., had earned attention from NASA for a system that removed lead from drinking water in schools. But they were soon targeted by racists online who were angry that African-American girls were being recognized, and tried to hack the system so they couldn't win.

The girls were participating in NASA's Optimus Prime Spinoff Promotion and Research Challenge (OPSPARC) when anonymous online trolls caught wind of them making the finals and decided to try to put a stop to it. They claimed that they had only advanced as far as they did because of their race, and that their system did not deserve to be put up against other competitors.

So they set about trying to hack the voting system to give others, particularly a group of teenage boys, increased odds of winning the competition, according to a Fox 5 report.

NASA officials did spot an attempt to change the vote totals, so they shut down voting and decided to determine the winners themselves instead.

Thank you so much for your support ❤️ pic.twitter.com/NVBzyydmbj
— mikayla. (@Mmmikaylaaa__) April 30, 2018

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser has responded by awarding $4,000 to the group.

"To celebrate their hard work, I am proud to present Mikayla, India, and Bria with a $4,000 grant toward their future innovations," she tweeted Thursday. "These young women are just the type of people and scientists our world needs more of and we are proud to support their dreams."

NASA issued a statement explaining their decision to end voting.

"On Sunday, April 29, hackers attempted to change the vote totals in the NASA OPSPARC Challenge, so managers of the challenge decided to end public voting to protect the integrity of the results," a NASA statement reads. "The challenge team has an accurate record of the voting results prior to the attempted disruption. The top three Public Choice teams in each category will be notified and recognized on the challenge website. In accordance with the judging criteria and voting procedures stated on the OPSPARC website, a panel of NASA Goddard judges will make a final determination of the winners using the published rubrics.

"Before the voting ended, members of the public were using social media to generate support for particular teams in the public voting," the statement continues. "NASA supports this kind of community-based effort to encourage students to engage with science, technology, engineering and math and recognizes social media as an important tool for that support. Votes generated this way are legitimate and will be counted. Unfortunately, it was brought to NASA’s attention yesterday that some members of the public used social media, not to encourage students and support STEM, but to attack a particular student team based on their race and encouraged others to disrupt the contest and manipulate the vote, and the attempt to manipulate the vote occurred shortly after those posts. NASA continues to support outreach and education for all Americans, and encourages all of our children to reach for the stars."

Image via NASA