Police: Grand Valley State student faked racial bias incident

An unnamed freshman student reported in February that his whiteboard had been vandalized with anti-black graffiti.

The graffitti caused a campus uproar and the university is planning on holding a "Teach-in" on the 26th in response to other "bias incidents."

Police believe the student faked the vandalism.

A Grand Valley State University (GVSU) student who reported an incident of racial bias last February actually perpetrated the incident, police have said.

The unnamed student reported that their dry erase board had been vandalized with racial slurs on February 17, according to the Grand Valley Lanthorn, the official student newspaper.

But a statement from Grand Valley Police Department Chief Renee Freeman shows that the police believe the student who owns the board wrote those messages.

The Lanthorn reported that the incident made the campus “highly alarmed, prompting assemblies, discussions in the classroom and a university-wide alert to the situation.”

A GVSU spokesperson told Campus Reform it will still host the previously scheduled “Teach-In” to discuss discrimination prevention on Wednesday.

“It's a broader context of inclusiveness and social justice, and it was not reliant on any one incident,” Mary Eilleen Lyon said in an interview on Monday. “So, it is still taking place. It is still going on. It is an all-day event.”

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