CHARLESTON, West Virginia -- A college professor in Texas says someone broke into his electronic mail account and fired off racist messages to 20,000 computer users in four states.


The message brought death threats and other harsh responses from nearly 500 users who thought it came from Grady Blount, a white professor of environmental science at Texas A&M University.


"My door is locked. We canceled a class last night and one today will be moved to another location,'' Blount said. He also changed his computer password.


Blount's password was used to send electronic mail messages to 20,000 Internet users in Mississippi, Wisconsin, Colorado and Texas. The Internet computer network links colleges, research facilities and individuals worldwide.


The racist message echoes a flier printed by a white supremacist group called the National Alliance. It urges readers to send "minority parasites packing to fend for themselves'' and condemns community development funding as support for black "breeding colonies.''


Texas A&M spokesman Greg Orwig said Blount's e-mail address apparently was picked at random by someone who tapped into the university's computer system Sunday and retrieved a list of e-mail users and encoded passwords.


National Alliance founder Franklin Pierce said his group did not send the message, though a member of the organization could be responsible.