Bomb threat made at Jill Biden’s community college campus, classes cancelled

The First Lady has been teaching at the college since 2009

A bomb threat was made at a community college hours before Jill Biden was scheduled to teach at the campus.

Classes at the Virginia Community College were cancelled as authorities investigated the threat, which was made before the first lady left the White House.

Mrs Biden, 70, continued teaching English and writing at the college after her husband Joe Biden was sworn into office. After a year of Zoom classes, she returned in late 2021 to teaching in-person lessons at the college, where she has been a professor since 2009, according to the White House.

News of the bomb threat emerged after the college issued a “CODE RED” on its website due to a bomb threat.

“Evacuate the area. Follow instructions of authorities. Avoid area,” the school announced.

Mrs Biden’s office said in a statement that the White House was informed of the threat prior to departing for the class, which she teaches every Tuesday.

“At no point was she in any danger,” the statement said.

It comes just weeks after Doug Emhoff, the husband of vice president Kamala Harris, was evacuated from an event at Dunbar High School in Washington DC due to a bomb threat on 8 February.

A 16-year-old boy was arrested and charged two days later charged with allegedly making similar threats in the area.

Mrs Biden became the first First Lady to continue paid employment outside the White House when she returned to the classroom in September last year.

She’s paid $85,999 for the nine-month school year in 2021-22, according to her faculty employment contract reported by Newsweek.

She’s listed under her middle name, Tracy, as teaching a class called College Composition, which reportedly aims to “introduce students to critical thinking and the fundamentals of academic writing”.

“Teaching isn’t just what I do. It’s who I am,” she told Good Housekeeping magazine last year.