An alleged “bias incident” at Lehigh University, a private research university in Pennsylvania, was found to be fabricated by the student who submitted the bias report to campus authorities.
On October 25, Lehigh University’s Assistant VP of Campus Safety and Chief of the Lehigh University Police Department, Jason Schiffer, issued a campus-wide “timely warning” notice to students and faculty via email, informing the school community that a bias incident was reported on campus.
According to the alert, a Lehigh student, “who self-identified as a hijab,” or someone who wears a hijab to outwardly express their Muslim faith, was “walking on Packer Ave near Neville Hall” on campus at approximately 1:30 in the afternoon when she was “hit by a crumpled piece of paper from the back.”
The student told authorities that the paper contained a message that described the Palestinian-backed group responsible for recent attacks on Israel as a “terrorist organization.” The student reportedly “interpreted [the incident] as harassment because she wore a hijab.”
The email sent to students and faculty encouraged anyone with information on the incident to contact Campus Safety and the Lehigh University Police Department and even included support resources for “Anyone in the Lehigh community who is impacted or who may be feeling unsafe or experiencing anxiety or stress regarding this incident.”
However, after just three days of investigation, the university concluded that the alleged incident never occurred.
An October 28 follow-up email sent from Vice President for Student Affairs, Ric Hall, and Vice President for Equity and Community, Donald Outing was shared with TPUSA and stated: “While investigating the Lehigh University Police Department found no evidence that the incident happened. After reviewing the evidence with Lehigh police, the student admitted that the incident did not occur.” This notice was later published by the school’s “HawkWatch” alert website.
“The acts described in the student’s report, had they occurred, run counter to our Principles of Equitable Community,” the statement read, adding that the reported actions, which did not occur, “create very real anxiety and fear for our community. To be clear, the university does not tolerate acts of hate, discrimination, harassment or retaliation in any form against or by any Lehigh community member.” The notice did not condemn the student for submitting a false report or request that students act with integrity when filing accusations, but rather insisted that the community “navigate these challenges with empathy.”
Around the country, several alleged “hate crimes” have been systematically debunked as hoaxes, perpetrated by attention-seeking students. TPUSA Contributor Stephen Davis previously commented on several similar incidents, such as NASAR driver “Bubba Wallace and the ominous garage handle, the college volleyball player who cried ‘racism’ — without any proof,” and when black students at the Air Force Academy “secretly wrote racial slurs on walls themselves, then claimed to be victimized.”
“We should give as much media coverage and scrutiny to people that fake hate crimes for attention as the original coverage of the incident,” TPUSA CEO and Founder Charlie Kirk wrote on X (formerly Twitter) in response to Jussie Smollett’s hate crime hoax which garnered national attention and sympathy. “There is hatred in America,” Kirk added, “imagine how much hatred you must have within you to stage a fake hate crime to gain attention like this.”
“We have a currency on victimology in our country,” Kirk said in a 2019 speech addressing the incident involving Smollett. “[Smollett thought] he was going to become a hero in our broken culture, [if] something bad happen[ed] to him.”
“This is an unbelievably dangerous trend,” Kirk added.
