The College Fix recently reported on the top 17 hate crime hoaxes from the past year, featuring students on campuses across the country faking acts of hate in order to drum up controversy and gain attention for themselves and their causes.
Daniel Payne, assistant editor for The Fix, recently joined Matt Kittle on a broadcast of The Jay Weber Show to discuss the epidemic of fake hate crimes and what they mean for both college campuses and society at large.
“There are a lot of people out there who, if they can’t find some form of hate or discrimination…they’re just going to manufacture it themselves,” Payne said.
“There are plenty of examples where you can pretty well directly trace the motivation behind these hoaxes to the election of Donald Trump,” Payne said, citing an instance where a San Diego University student claimed she was harassed by some men in a parking garage who invoked the name of Donald Trump. That case turned out to be a fake. The victim “just actually forgot where she parked her car,” Payne said.
“You can see people kind of seizing on the hysteria of Trump’s election and presidency to advance a narrative that in many cases simply does not exist at all,” Payne said.
“I think there has been an uptick [in hate crime hoaxes],” Payne continued. “This year really did seem to see a rise in both the number of incidents and the crazy responses to them.” Payne cited the madness at St. Olaf College that took place earlier this year after what ended up being a fake hate crime was perpetrated there. “The campus was effectively shut down by mobs of student protestors.”
“Not only do you see more people and more students perpetrating these hoaxes,” Payne said, “but the response becomes ever-crazier and sometimes ever-more destructive.”
Listen to the broadcast here, with Payne’s segment around the 30-minute mark.
Like The College Fix on Facebook / Follow us on Twitter
Add to the Discussion