[NOTE: This post was UPDATED July 4]
Inside Higher Ed reports today about a new racial hoax incident, at Central Connecticut State University. A student reported receiving hate notes, leading predictably to a rally to support her, police investigation, etc., etc.
Police who were investigating Pennell’s allegations installed (with her knowledge) a camera to try to identify who was leaving the notes. Twice the camera was turned off, and during one of those times, a note arrived. Authorities then installed another camera in a hall closet and recorded Pennell leaving the notes herself.
The student has been expelled and is facing criminal charges. “Her lawyer declined to comment.”
As it happens I’ve written quite a bit about racial hoaxes (and probable racial hoaxes) quite a bit in the past, most but not all involving students at the University of Virginia. This is most of them, if anyone is interested in this peculiar form of racial protest:
Diversity, Honor and Double Standards at UVa
A Hate Crime Occurred, But Who Was The Victim?
Hate Crimes And Double Standards In Charlottesville
Alleged Hate Crime at UVa (Continuing…)
The Continuing Concern Over Hate Crimes And Diversity At Virginia
Diversity Fervor Builds At UVa
UVa: “Candlelight Vigil Gives Voice To Outrage”
Non-UVa posts on hoaxes:
Crime Wave Of (Fake) Hate Crimes
Hate Crime Hoax At Claremont Colleges
UPDATE [July 4]
A friend emailed to ask whether I really meant to imply that lesbians are a race, for if I didn’t this event was not a racial hoax. (Friend mentioned that since, at least according to mythology, lesbians originated on Lesbos, an island, they may also be nationality.) In any event, I meant to imply neither. My embarrassing error was not reading the Hartford Courant article on which the Inside Higher Ed piece was based, or, for that matter, even reading the IHE report carefully enough. Alas, both my editor and fact-checker were absent on July 4. (Or course, good help being hard to find, they’re absent every day.)
I did not believe the account then as a student on Grounds, it didn’t make sense. But no one was willing to say so for how it would make them look. And she benefitted from that lie, as did others, and the University suffered. On many levels.