Advancing by Degrees: Hoax Crimes

AT Duke University last November, a group of students hanged from a tree a black doll bearing a sign that read “Duke hasn’t changed.” They also covered with black paint the nearby Class of 1948 granite bench. The site of the mock lynching was the gathering place for members of the Black Student Alliance, who had been planning a protest outside the office of Duke President Nan Keohane.

The identities of the perpetrators—evidently white racists—were unknown for nearly a week, and the campus reaction to the incident was one of horror and dismay. The Chronicle, Duke’s student newspaper, published a letter from undergraduate Stephen Poon denouncing the episode as a “racial crime.” Members of the BSA claimed that it showed how tense race relations were on campus.

AT Duke University last November, a group of students hanged from a tree a black doll bearing a sign that read “Duke hasn’t changed.” They also covered with black paint the nearby Class of 1948 granite bench. The site of the mock lynching was the gathering place for members of the Black Student Alliance, who had been planning a protest outside the office of Duke President Nan Keohane.

The identities of the perpetrators—evidently white racists—were unknown for nearly a week, and the campus reaction to the incident was one of horror and dismay. The Chronicle, Duke’s student newspaper, published a letter from undergraduate Stephen Poon denouncing the episode as a “racial crime.” Members of the BSA claimed that it showed how tense race relations were on campus.