It’s been a running gag at Instapundit for years now that if it weren’t for fake hate crimes, there’d be hardly any hate crimes at all. So it probably shouldn’t come as a huge surprise to learn that yet another fake hate crime allegation has been proven false.

Developing: 6th grade girl who said three classmates cut her hair last week at Virginia school now says her allegations were false, according to statement from school. Story coming soon. — Joe Heim (@JoeHeim) September 30, 2019

It was all over the major papers late last week, when 12-year-old Amari Allen, a black student, claimed that three white boys held her down and forcibly cut some of her dreadlocks at their Christian school.

Wiser bloggers demurred from covering the story until more information could come to light.

Yet the NYT and other outlets breathlessly reported the sixth-grader’s accusation in a phone interview. “They put me on the ground,” she claimed. “One of them put my hands behind my back. One put his hands over my mouth. One cut my hair. They were saying that my hair was ugly, that it was nappy.” And Twitter was all lit up because of the supposed Mike Pence connection — his wife Karen teaches at the Immanuel Christian School where the assault never happened.

https://twitter.com/dailykos/status/1178678790454697985

DailyKos is on it! Let’s see if A) They retract this tweet, or B) double down on stupid.

White students at Karen Pence’s anti-LGBT school hold down black girl and cut her hair https://t.co/C52u5MgT3d — PinkNews (@PinkNews) September 29, 2019

No, they didn’t. The girl recanted. Nevertheless, school principal Stephen Danish released a statement this morning bemoaning the “tremendous pain for the victims and the hurt on both sides of this conflict.”

Both sides? Did Allen’s feelings get hurt when she had to retract her false accusation?

At the school where @KarenPence teaches, 3 white boys assaulted Amari Allen by pinning her hands, covering her mouth, & cutting her hair…while they called her names. This needs daylight. #media #journalism https://t.co/zfE7W6ZEKU — Jess Phoenix 🌋 (@jessphoenix2018) September 29, 2019

Well, we almost have all the daylight we need on this one, thanks. I do have one question still unanswered: Will Allen face anything like the discipline the boys would have (and should have) if her accusations hadn’t been lies?