NEWBERG Ore.
Officials of a small Christian university say a life-size cardboard reproduction of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama was hung from a tree on the campus, an act that outraged students and school leaders alike.
George Fox University President Robin Baker said a custodian discovered the effigy early Tuesday and removed it. University spokesman Rob Felton said Wednesday that the commercially produced reproduction had been suspended from the branch of a tree with fishing line around the neck.
Taped to the cardboard cutout of the Black senator from Illinois was a message targeting participants in Act Six, a scholarship program geared toward increasing the number of minority and low-income students at several Christian colleges, mostly in the Northwest.
The message read, "Act Six reject."
The disturbing image found near the heart of the campus recalled the days of lynchings of Blacks and was all the more incongruous at a university founded by Quaker pioneers in 1891. Felton said he had been at the school since he enrolled two decades ago, and "I've never experienced or heard of any type of overt racial act."
At the end of the college's regular chapel service Wednesday, Baker told students he was "disheartened and outraged."
"It has been my dream to establish a university that more adequately represents the kingdom of God," he said. "This act causes some to question our commitment."
Baker added, "What I've learned is we still have work to do."
Administrators at the university said Wednesday they do not know who hung the effigy, which Felton said few people saw before it was taken down.
