Good news for college liberals everywhere. There has been a recent spree of hate speech and hate crime hoaxes, leading experts to think that the figures for hate crimes in the past few years in colleges around America are exaggerated, sometimes greatly. Here's a few amusing incidents:

In the midst of an antirape rally in the University of Massachusetts, a woman cut herself with a knife, tossed it under a car, and claimed to have been sexually assaulted. After a month of bluffing, she admitted she was making the whole thing up.

In the same school, one female student claimed to have fought off three male attackers after being hit with a pepper-like substance. Doubts about her ability to run after being hit by mace forced her to confess. It was the fourth incident that year. What do you expect out of Massachusetts?

In the University of Iowa, for three weeks black students were "terrorized" by bomb threats, emails, and piles of red noodles left at their doors, suggesting that those were the "brains" of the blacks. After a bit of investigation, a black female, one Tarsha Michelle Claiborne, was arrested.

Two weeks after the murder of Matthew Sheppard (a horrible tragedy, I admit), a lesbian in the University of Minnesota claimed that she was assaulted by two anti-gay men. The outraged students raised rewards (around $12,000) for their arrests, but it turned out she faked it. Similar fakes were reported around the country, including New Mexico.

In North Carolina's Guilford College, the president of the student senate, one Molly Martin, claimed that she was assaulted and then had "nigger lover" scrawled on her chest. She then immediately demanded that the school install a full-time African-American Affairs director. The police dropped the case, because she was a "reluctant" witness, in addition to refusing to disclose to them the details of the "attack". She then dropped out, apologizing for "inappropriate acts", but refusing to explain what they were. Not that it mattered, the school installed the position.

There are plenty more. While it seems to be a new trend, college authorities were denying this. In addition, convictions are extremely rare. Two black students, accused of posting KKK fliers in the University of Ohio , despite having had their fingerprints on 42 of the 55 posters, were acquitted by "insufficent evidence".

Even more amusing was the dismissive attitude the administrapo and the faculty had towards these hoaxes. Most common excuses was "it doesn't matter if they were true or not, the discrimination is very true and occurs regularly". They also praised the liars, for bringing attention to the racist and sexist issues in American colleges. Good job for encouraging the trend they don't claim to exist.

I wonder if the Cornell Progressive newspaper would choose to print this article. I doubt it. Oh well. If I want to publish it, I would go to the Cornell Review, which is, in all facets, a superior piece of journalism.

Or perhaps it isn't such a new trend. See Cornell '69 : Liberalism and the Crisis of the American University. You might find it interesting because it was a true event.

Bah! I can't even crack a joke on the overwhelmingly liberal population of Massachusetts? While it's OK to bash China day and night, over whatever issue that comes to the minds of the liberal media? Fine. I'll make fun of NYC next time. Or perhaps California. OK?



Editor's note: Reference: Gose, Ben. (1999) Hate-Crime Hoaxes Unsettle Campuses , Chronicle of Higher Education, v45 n18 pA55-A56 (ISBN 0009-5982) Link to article