'Noose' incident stirs emotion on Del. campus

Brittany Horn, Sarika Jagtiani and Robin Brown | The (Wilmington, Del.) News Journal

NEWARK, Del. — Three objects found hanging from a tree on the University of Delaware’s Green were not nooses or evidence of a hate crime as first suspected, school officials said Wednesday morning, but remnants of paper lanterns left from a June event.

Less than 24 hours later, members of the UD community packed The Green in front of Memorial Hall to discuss the incident and find ways to change the campus climate. The school’s interim president had initially called the incident a hate crime late Tuesday night.

“Diversity isn’t something UD can say it’s already achieved because it hasn’t,” said sophomore Anima Agyeman at the Wednesday gathering. “You can’t fulfill a multicultural requirement with a history of fashion class ... it’s about teaching an experience.”

One by one, students like Agyeman, along with top university officials of all races, took the stage to share harrowing experiences of how they were treated as minorities on and around campus. Agyeman fought through tears, recalling her first night on campus when she said a white man followed her back to her dorm, asking her how she could be “so f------ black.”

Rick Deadwyler, the university’s director of government relations and a UD alumni, said he had similar experiences as a student but said he still didn’t want to believe that “whatever you want to call it” happened on UD’s campus.

“To wake up early and see that caption,” Deadwyler said, referencing the photo that circulated social media late Tuesday night of the objects hanging from the trees.

“The image and the idea that something like that was plausible on our campus was concerning.”

Acting UD President Nancy M. Targett announced the finding that the objects were lantern remnants in a statement and released photos of the original lanterns early Wednesday morning. The university said then that the lanterns were from an event in early September, but about 2 p.m., UD officials said they from Alumni Weekend in June.

“Thanks to tips from students who responded to our earlier call for information and the investigative work of University of Delaware Police, it has been determined that the three noose-like items found outside Mitchell Hall were not instruments of a hate crime, but the remnants of paper lanterns from an event previously held on The Green,” Targett said in the statement, also posted on UD’s website.

In the statement, UD Police Chief Patrick Ogden said, “I am confident that we have determined the origin of these items.”

But many students, including those who turned out for Wednesday night’s gathering planned by students and the university, dismissed the explanation and said the objects implied a bigger problem at UD — one that many say the university has failed to address.

Obichukwu Maduka-Ugwn stood in front of the hundreds gathered, staring out into the crowd before leaning to down to the microphone.

“We are not here to attack anyone, but at the same time, you have to understand what is here,” the junior from Nigeria said, gesturing to students. “We all pay equally to go here.”

Throughout the night, speakers and signs referenced the Black Lives Matter movement, which has sparked national attention in recent months. The chant — used to remind people that black lives matter just as much as white ones, students said — has become a rallying cry in the wake of black men repeatedly dying across the country at the hands of police.

The lantern remnants were discovered one day after a Black Lives Matter silent protest took place outside of a speaking event by Fox News commentator Katie Pavlich. Pavlich, who spoke about the second amendment and the right to bear arms, previously called the Black Lives Matter movement a “violent hate group.”

Deadwyler reminded students of the pride he felt in how they chose to express their frustrations with the speaker Monday and said the act showed a unity among students dedicated to this cause.

Now, he’s ready to move forward from Tuesday’s incident and turn the crisis into an opportunity.

“We need it put it in the rear view mirror where it belongs — not to forget it, but to move forward,” Deadwyler said. “Please don’t let this thing stop at 5:30 today.”

How it happened, what it means

Chief Ogden detailed how the incident unfolded, why he labeled the investigation that of a hate crime at first and how he became convinced that it wasn’t one.

About 10 p.m. Tuesday, he said, a student called UD police “to report what he believed to be a noose, a noose-like object, hanging from a tree by Mitchell Hall.”

Officers responded and took pictures of the objects before removing them and keeping them as evidence, he said, noting, “I thought it was a noose-like object myself.”

Because of the Black Lives Matter protest as well as the reactions of students including “social media buzz around it,” Ogden said UD police “launched a hate-crime investigation and made the decision to notify the whole university.”

After a UD Alert notification went out, he said, “eight different students came forward to say that the objects that were hanging from the tree were there at least as early as the 1st or 8th of September,” he said.

Another student provided a picture Tuesday night that was taken of the hanging objects without lanterns on Sept. 16, he said. That student believed the items were left from some kind of student engineering project, Ogden said.

But not long after the UD Alert, Ogden got what he felt was positive proof after “a student came forward and said she took down the paper lantern[s] from the tree.”

She had seen one lantern hanging from one of the strings and took it “to decorate her room,” he said. When she pulled down the paper part of the lantern, the string and a wire from the inside of the lantern stayed on the tree, Ogden said.

“When we put the wire inside the lantern, it fit,” Ogden said. “There is no doubt in my mind that the wire that was recovered hanging from the tree branch was the wire that was designed inside the lantern and fits inside the lantern.

At the request of The News Journal, the police department produced a video showing how the wire fit inside a lantern.

Knowing the situation it caused, he said, the girl who took the paper lantern said she “felt terrible for causing all this.”

As to how the lanterns’ wire stretchers and hanging strings went unnoticed in the tree since June, UD spokeswoman Andrea Boyle-Tippett said, “no one knows.”

Objects’ discovery

Students who found what were thought to be three makeshift nooses hanging from a tree Tuesday night near Mitchell Hall recalled being brought to tears Tuesday night.

Ayanna Gill, one of the organizers of the Black Lives Matter protest Monday night and a student activist, said the image reminded her of photos and stories she had seen and read in history books about her ancestors.

But she believes that there is hope and strength in moving forward together, especially after Wednesday’s gathering.

“We are here today because we’re not returning hate with hate,” she said. “But this is not the end.”

Some students, however, said they thought the university jumped the gun by calling the incident a hate crime the night before.

“We are both saddened and disturbed that this deplorable act has taken place on our campus,” Targett said in the Tuesday night statement.

A few students who walked by Mitchell Hall at lunchtime Wednesday paused to read signs on the trees or talk about the “noose-like objects” found in one of the trees.

Elexis Keels, of Washington, D.C., said the discovery unsettled her.

“I shouldn’t feel unsafe walking past a building where there were supposedly nooses hanging down,” she said, “but I do. ... I don’t think it was paper lanterns.”

“I think it’s all just so ridiculous,” said business major Emily Cyrus of Wilmington. “They [UD police and officials] immediately jumped to the worst possible conclusion."

But no matter what the items were, change is coming, said Carol Henderson, the university’s vice provost of diversity.

She told the UD community Wednesday night that a diversity action plan is circulating among senior leadership and awaiting approval before beginning implementation.

“We hear you. We see you,” Henderson said, gesturing to the crowd. “We need to walk arm in arm with them and say ‘I am concerned because you are concerned.’”

She paused before continuing.

“It cuts to my soul that we have this kind of pain on campus,” she said, before noting that Tuesday’s incident and Wednesday’s outpouring have provided her with a new mantra.

“Not on our campus,” she said. “We are bigger than hate.”