By Hilarie Rigdon
Last Wednesday proved to be a disturbing day for the University of Kentucky community.
UK’s campus police received a call at 7:45 a.m. regarding an effigy of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama hanging from a tree near the William T. Young Library. By 8:25 a.m., the physical plant had cut down the effigy using a crane.
Hunter Bush and Joseph Fischer, a former UK football walk-on, turned themselves in on Thursday and were arrested with charges of second-degree burglary, second-degree disorderly conduct and theft by unlawful taking. The two men stated that the Sarah Palin effigy hanging from a house in West Hollywood inspired their idea.
UK President Lee Todd described his own outrage in a statement to the UK community on Wednesday. He expressed his own apologies to Sen. Obama for the incident, saying “this is not who we are as a university or a state.”
“We have insisted – and we will continue to insist – that we as a University and as a state rise above hatred and acts of malice or ignorance,” Todd said in his statement.
University of Louisville President James Ramsey and Provost Shirley Willihnganz expressed similar sentiments in a statement to the U of L community on Wednesday.
“As Americans and as an institution of higher education, we know the importance of free speech and free thought,” the statement read. “This type of activity, however, is not acceptable as either.”
Some on U of L’s campus have expressed their own concern about the incident and what it says about race in American society.
“It’s sad that our generation has not gotten past racial barriers,” said senior art major Rachel Cupstid.
“People are scared of Obama because he is black or they think he is Muslim. It is a disgrace for the people of today for something like this to happen,” said sophomore Mallory Smith.
The UK community worked fast in response to the incident. A forum was organized for the evening of Oct. 29 with student, community and university leaders to address issues of intolerance that surrounded the incident.
Gail Hairston, communications manager in the Office of Public Relations at UK, said that although the recent incident was unfortunate, she wasn’t aware of others to occur at the university.
“To be honest this has been a tough week,” said Hairston in a phone interview. “But this is something we’re going to work through overtime.”
Hairston said that students and administrators are currently organizing effective responses to the incident and that “we’re making plans for future actions.”
-Emory Williamson contributed to this story.
