George Washington Professor Resigns After Scandal Over Fake Racial Identity

Enlarge this image

George Washington University says Jessica A. Krug has resigned from her position as an associate professor at the school.

Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post via Getty Images

hide caption

toggle caption

Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Live Updates: Protests For Racial Justice
GWU Investigating Whether White Professor Invented Her Black Identity

Krug has not responded to NPR requests for comment about her resignation or whether she actually wrote the blog post. However, it’s worth noting that she has not publicly distanced herself from the post since it was published on Sept. 3.

A day after the post was released, GWU said Krug «would not be teaching her classes this semester while it reviewed the situation.

The post predicted that her apparent confession would cause pain: «People have fought together with me and have fought for me, and my continued appropriation of a Black Caribbean identity is not only, in the starkest terms, wrong — unethical, immoral, anti-Black, colonial — but it means that every step I’ve taken has gaslighted those whom I love.

«I am not a culture vulture. I am a culture leech, the writer said, adding that mental health issues probably contribute to why she assumed a false identity.

Some members of the academic community have demanded more than Krug’s resignation. Yomaira Figueroa, an assistant professor of global diaspora studies at Michigan State University, told NPR last week that she thinks Krug «took up some of the very few — very few — resources and spaces that there are available to Black and Latino scholars and use those to her advantage.

«There absolutely has to be a form of restitution for the things that she took. It’s egregious, Figueroa added.

Lisa Betty, a doctoral candidate at Fordham University, echoed that call in a blog post. «Krug took up space, opportunity, time, and money. I call for reparations.