San Diego city attorney considers whether hanging of noose in school library was a hate crime

San Diego city attorney to investigate noose case

SAN DIEGO — The San Diego city attorney’s office will determine if the hanging of a noose in a University of California, San Diego library was a hate crime.

San Diego police say they’ve completed their investigation into the incident, and they turned over their results to the city attorney Tuesday.

Authorities say a student admitted to police that she’d hung a noose on a bookcase on the seventh floor of the main library last Thursday, triggering angry protests and charges of racism. The student apologized in a letter published Monday in the university newspaper, saying the prank had no racist intent.

The student was suspended from the university on Feb. 26.

The racially charged incident was one of several in recent weeks at the university that have prompted student protests.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A firestorm over racially and ethnically charged incidents at several University of California campuses spread Tuesday as UC San Diego announced a KKK-style hood was found on campus and students in Los Angeles and Irvine demonstrated against intolerance.

“What kind of campus promotes an environment that allows people to think it’s acceptable to target people for their ethnicity, gender or sexuality?” said Corey Matthews, one of about 200 mostly minority UCLA students who held a lunchtime rally. “It’s something about the tone of the environment that allows this.”

At UC Irvine, about 250 people gathered for a “student solidarity speakout” to condemn the recent spate of racist incidents at UC San Diego that targeted black students and another incident last month at UC Davis, which targeted a Jewish student with a swastika carved on her door, said Marya Bangee, an event organizer.

The protests came on the same day UC San Diego announced the discovery of a white pillowcase fashioned into a KKK-style hood — the third racist incident around the campus in as many weeks — and a day after UC Santa Cruz officials found an image of a noose scribbled on the inside of a bathroom door.

Officials found the hood, which bore a hand-drawn circle and cross, on a statue of children’s book author Theodor Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss, outside the main campus library late Monday. A rose had been inserted between the statue’s fingers.

Detectives were analyzing the pillowcase for fingerprints and DNA evidence, a university statement said.

UC San Diego Chancellor Marye Anne Fox vowed to punish the culprits to the fullest extent of the law. “We will not tolerate these despicable actions,” she said in the statement.

The hood came on the heels two other UC San Diego incidents: a February off-campus, student-organized “Compton Cookout” party that mocked Black History Month with ghetto stereotypes; and a noose found hanging from a library bookshelf last week.

One of the students responsible for the noose apologized to the university community in an anonymous letter published Monday in the campus newspaper. She said the noose was formed while she and friends were playing around with a piece of rope and had no meaning as a lynching symbol.

The student said she is not black, but is a minority.

The incident also is under investigation by law enforcement agencies, campus spokeswoman Judy Piercey said.

Although UCLA students said no racial incidents had occurred recently on their campus, in 2007, a fraternity held a “Tijuana Sunrise” party that mocked Mexican-Americans with stereotyped images, they said.

The incidents are disturbing and most likely the work of “outliers” using offensive and outrageous behavior to gain notoriety, said Brian Levin, director of California State University’s Center for Study of Hate and Extremism in San Bernardino.

He said surveys show young people are less prejudiced than ever, but “these things touch a nerve, and these folks know it.”

UCLA demonstrators called on administrators to institute a required ethnic studies course that would teach students about other cultures.

“It would be a very strong and powerful statement for diversity,” said Kent Wong, a speaker at the rally and director of UCLA’s Center for Labor Research and Education.

At UC San Diego, officials were already moving to create a more tolerant environment after meeting with black student leaders, Piercey said.

Initiatives include recruiting more minority faculty, instituting a mentoring program, creating an African American Resource Center, and ensuring funding for the diversity office, Piercey said.