Officials at Michigan State University investigated and released strongly worded statements earlier this week because a female student claimed to find a noose on the handle of a stairwell door in a residence hall.

Turns out, the alleged “noose” was just a stray shoelace.

The first report of the packaged leather shoelace someone decided was a noose occurred on Wednesday morning, reports the Lansing State Journal.

Police — and, of course, the office of institutional equity — investigated the shoelace after a female student reported it as a noose.

The president of Michigan State University, Lou Anna Simon, rapidly released a statement denouncing nooses and describing the shoelace hanging on a dorm door in Holden Hall as “a racial incident.”

“A student reported a noose was hung outside of her room,” Simon’s statement said. “I want to recognize the courage it took for the student to report this incident.”

“This type of behavior is not tolerated on our campus,” the taxpayer-funded school president also said. “No Spartan should ever feel targeted based on their race, or other ways in which they identify. A noose is a symbol of intimidation and threat that has a horrendous history in America.”

By Wednesday afternoon, campus police managed to locate a shoelace which matched the “noose.” The police found it outside the dormitory.

The campus cops even managed to track down the student who had lost the shoelaces.

A Michigan State spokesman, Jason Cody, then suggested that the shoelaces were somehow specially packaged to look like “a noose.”

“The matching packaged shoelace was found outside of the residence hall,” Cody said in an updated statement. “Officers located and spoke to the student who lost both of the shoelaces, which are packaged in a way that someone could perceive them to look similar to a noose.”

The student who lost the shoelaces lives on the same floor as the student who called in the noose threat.

“Also, the original shoelace found inside the residence hall was not directed at any individual,” Cody said reassuringly. “It originally was seen on hallway floor and later on a stairwell door handle, where officers believe someone put it after picking it up.”

The Michigan State fake noose kerfuffle is another in a very long line of allegations about nooses on college campuses which turned out to be hoaxes — or paper lantern remnants, or something besides nooses. (RELATED: SURPRISE! Campus Noose Drawing Was Created By Black Students. NO CHARGES FILED For ‘Hate Crime’)

Michigan State is famous, of course, for blatantly discriminating against male students by maintaining a taxpayer-funded women’s study lounge in its main student union — in which male students could not trespass. (RELATED: 2016: Michigan State University Faces Civil Rights Complaint Over WOMEN-ONLY Lounge In Student Union)

Officials at the taxpayer-funded school also outlawed whiteboards from doors in dorm buildings earlier this year because it’s possible that someone could scrawl some offensive message or image on them. (RELATED: Michigan State Bans WHITEBOARDS On Dorm Doors Because Maybe Someone Might Get Offended)

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