Correction appended
Claremont McKenna Professor Kerri Dunn made national headlines
when she appeared to be the victim of a hate crime.
But it is now said that she may have betrayed the trust of her
supporters and students by allegedly staging the crime.
Two students came forward to say they saw her damage her own
car, breaking windows, and spray-painting slurs on its sides, the
Los Angeles Times reported.
Before the incident, Dunn was one of her campus’s leading
voices against hate crimes. But if the allegations are true, Dunn
has done tremendous harm to her own cause.
On a campus where students lit an 11-foot cross on fire, Dunn
called on students and administrators to pay more attention to
racism and hate speech. But unless Dunn can prove her own
innocence, few are likely to listen to her at all.
Furthermore, if the allegations are true, Dunn’s actions
will have given ammunition to the (mostly empty) idea that people
concerned with racism and hate speech are obsessed with making
themselves out to be victims.
If that is what Dunn in fact did, then she has done irreparable
harm in the fight to combat problems she spoke out against.
Correction: April 7, 2004,
Wednesday
This article should have said two community members said they
saw Dunn damage her own car.