Same Ish, Different Toilet

From yesterday's Oregonian

Students and campus leaders at George Fox University denounced the hanging of a life-size cardboard cutout of U.S. Sen. Barack Obama on campus, vowing to work together to fight racism and intolerance.

A custodial crew at the 3,355-student Christian university found the Obama likeness hanging by fishing wire from a tree at 7 a.m. Tuesday and tore it down before students arrived for classes.

A sign taped to the cutout said, "Act Six reject," referring to a scholarship program for Portland students, many of whom are minorities.

President Robin Baker, standing with dozens of Act Six students and student leaders in front of a packed auditorium Wednesday morning, urged students to show the incident has no place in Christian ideals.

Baker said the incident was a blow to efforts over the past several years to recruit more diverse students by developing relationships with minority groups in Portland. This fall, 25 percent of the 390 freshmen are students of color, up from 16 percent in 2005.

The Act Six program, which started last year, provides full scholarships each year to as many as 10 students chosen for their leadership potential from Portland high schools.

The Obama image at George Fox is the third publicized incident on Oregon college campuses in the past year involving racist images hanging from trees.

At Oregon State University in Corvallis last fall, a noose was left hanging from a tree after a fraternity Halloween party. And at Reed College in Portland, a Halloween display last year included dummies, supposed to represent ghosts, hanging by nooses from trees on campus. In both incidents, students said they didn't intend the images to be racist.

Nike and Greg Oden might be the only reasons my black ass would step foot in the Pacific Northwest... See y'all at the polls.