Recently a sighting of a ‘noose on a tree’ outside the student union was reported by ‘a student’ at Duke University.

The report from this student came at 2 am on April Fools Day. What was this ‘student’ doing at the student union at 2 am?

I located the original tweet made by one Justin Elliott – the time stamp says “1:58 AM – 1 Apr 2015“:

A noose hanging from a tree at Duke University. I have no words. pic.twitter.com/Zk594eP2Ub

— Justin Elliott (@JustinElliott3) April 1, 2015

 Just 6 minutes later, it was retweeted by “Patrick Crowley“. 

Mr. Elliott has interesting tweets in his timeline. Like this one:

IMA OWN A RESTAURANT THAT ONLY HIRE WHITE PEOPLE AND THEY GOTTA SAY “ITS MY PRIVILEGE” AFTER EVERYTHING SO THEY ADMIT WHITE PRIVILEGE EXISTS

— Justin Elliott (@JustinElliott3) February 23, 2015

It apparently took a full 45 minutes to remove the noose from the tree. Plenty of time to send a tweet viral.

Duke University launched an investigation and found the person responsible, but won’t name him:

#Duke says it has identified student who placed noose on campus but won’t name them. Did Duke LAX get that option? http://t.co/Jue71otXc1 — LL1885 – A.P. Dillon (@LadyLiberty1885) April 3, 2015

How convenient.

Why no naming of the perpetrator, Duke? The school was all too quick to jump on the Duke Lacrosse team. Also, why isn’t the local media pushing harder to gain access to that name?

The College Fix is on the case digging into Duke’s claim that naming the perpetrator would violate FERPA:

By giving such a flimsy excuse for shielding the perp’s identity, Duke is inviting observers to speculate that the noose-hanging was a hoax by a politically motivated student who wanted to whip up racial outrage in service of a campus agenda. Say, increasing the budget for African & African American studies, hiring more non-white faculty or putting students through mandatory diversity training.

FERPA doesn’t come close to shielding the release of student information that has nothing to do with academics. For example, the attorney general of Illinois just told its state schools that they can’t hide behind FERPA – even at the risk of losing their federal funding – to prevent the release of a database of student email addresses.

Other than habitually denying records request just cuz, Duke’s administration has no justification to withhold such basic information about the perp other than embarrassment that the noose narrative will fall apart.

Read the whole article.