Rumors of this incident have been circulating all day, and they’ve just been officially confirmed. The statement doesn’t seem to be up on the UCSD website yet, so I’m posting it below. (Later: It’s up on their site too.)
3:40 pm California time | I have to say, I’m flabbergasted by UCSD’s inability to get out in front of these stories. It took them fifteen hours to put out a statement on the hood incident, which has been circulating on Twitter all day. Just four hours ago, a campus spokesperson told the UC Davis student newspaper that they didn’t know anything about it.
Meanwhile, it took UC President Mark Yudof just six hours to post to Twitter debunking a joke site that claimed he’d resigned.
5:20 pm | Commenter Jeremy has noted that Seuss published some racist cartoons early in his career, and that it’s possible the hood was a reference to that. Doesn’t seem particularly likely to me, but it’s possibile.
Having said that, though, I’ll say this as well: I’m really not interested in having this post’s comment thread swamped with idle speculation about the motivation behind the incident. If you’ve got solid information, by all means share it, but if you’re considering commenting just to tell us how sure you are that it’s a hoax, or real, or a prank, or whatever, don’t bother. We’re all aware of what the possibilities are.
5:00 am Wednesday | I didn’t mention this last night, but police say that in addition to the Klan hood, a rose was found in the fingers of the Seuss statue.
The symbolism of carrying a rose at UCSD this week is worth noting, as students anonymously left roses on desks in the library on Monday, and encouraged students to carry them throughout the day as a gesture of community and solidarity in the struggle for “safety, dignity, and equal opportunity” on campus.
UC San Diego police are investigating the discovery about 11 p.m. Monday of what appeared to be a white pillowcase that had been crudely fashioned into a KKK-style hood with a hand-drawn symbol. It was placed on a statue outside the main campus library, and a rose was inserted into the statue’s fingers.
The items have been removed and the police are processing them for evidence, including fingerprint and DNA analysis. An aggressive police investigation is underway. We will pursue this with all of our authority and individuals who are responsible will be punished to the full extent of the Student Code of Conduct and all applicable laws.
“We will not allow this incident, or any incident, to deter the progress we are making to change and heal our university community,” said UC San Diego Chancellor Marye Anne Fox. “We will not tolerate these despicable actions. We stand in firm solidarity with our students and are fully committed to instituting their recommendations. We know these changes will make this university a better place and will help us improve our campus climate.”
If you have any information about this incident, please call the UC San Diego Police Department at (858) 534-4359 or email detective@ucsd.edu.
studentactivism.net 
31 comments
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March 2, 2010 at 6:46 pm
Jesse
Excellent observation in the update. Clearly the UC administration knows what their priorities are.
The rest of this is kind of too distressing to even comment on right now…
March 2, 2010 at 6:59 pm
Jeremy
I think it’s a real stretch to interpret this as a hate crime or anything meant to intimidate black people. If it even has any meaning I think it’s a political statement about Geisel’s contribution to U.S. anti-Japan propaganda during WWII. Apparently that was part of the reason UCSD decided to cancel its Dr. Seuss birthday celebration this week, due to the campus climate.
March 2, 2010 at 8:13 pm
Angus Johnston
I disagree with you about the likelihood of various possible motivations, but the reality is that none of us know. We don’t know, and our guesses say far more about us than they do about the situation.
March 2, 2010 at 11:55 pm
Mike McGee
I wonder if the university “will not tolerate these despicable actions” if it turns out this was a critique of Dr. Seuss (which it doesn’t take much more than a sliver of semiotic awareness to discern that it probably was). Will they “not tolerate” them, or will they let this one slide? It’ll be interesting to find out.
March 3, 2010 at 2:52 am
UCSD updates around the state. « War of Position
[…] https://studentactivism.net/2010/03/02/kkk-hood-found-on-dr-seuss-statue-at-ucsd-last-night/ […]
March 3, 2010 at 3:51 am
TY
The irony in the matter is that Geisel was only prejudiced against the Japanese during WWII. he promoted racial unity between white and black americans and even later apologized for his anti-Japanese sentiments in Horton Hears a Who. Clearly, whoever did this (whether protester or simple troll) didn’t research too deeply into the matter. What a brilliant way to honor the memory of one of the most prominent and influential figures of our university.
March 3, 2010 at 8:25 am
Mike McGee
You mean a reactionary purveyor of white guilt didn’t do the research? Haven’t you heard that facts, reason, and logic are racist social constructs?
March 3, 2010 at 8:46 am
Angus Johnston
As I said above, Mike, we don’t know who did this or why, and I’m not interested in another comments thread full of pointless axe-grinding. TY added relevant info about Seuss, but you’re just recycling talking points.
March 3, 2010 at 9:21 am
Mike McGee
I’m sorry. That’s really not my purpose. I am adding facts to the argument. And it is a fact that ethnic studies departments borrow from deconstruction the notion that truth and rationality itself are social constructs. They add to that notion the angle that in a racist society truth and logic are racist social constructs. You probably know this, and your readers should know it too. Those outside the academy probably haven’t heard this as a talking point. In fact, I discover when I talk to non-academics that it’s little known. It definitely helps to explain the events as they’re unfolding.
Indeed, this absolutely matters in explaining how people who relate to ethnic studies disciplines are responding to these things as they unfold. If truth and logic are racist social constructs, waiting for facts would itself, the thinking goes, reinforce the dominant, racist power structure. Instead, it becomes necessary to strike immediately with a list of demands.
This helps to explain why the obvious symbology of a KKK hood put on a statue is being interpreted (by you, by the administration) to have the exact opposite meaning of its very clear intention. (Sadly, since teaching structuralism is no longer cool, folks don’t “get” things like vehicle and tenor any more.) If it were a KKK hood of George W. Bush, I think everyone would understand the intention. But logic would merely reinforce white power, so we have to use this as another instance of hurt and another occasion to push for more demands.
Sure, there’s some commentary here, but I think you’d have to admit that the facts regarding the underlying theories of ethnic studies matters here.
March 3, 2010 at 9:34 am
Mike McGee
Really, if you add the rose to the equation, which you’ve done, are you willing to recant your statement that it’s not likely there could be more than one interpretation? A rose expressing solidarity with African American students, a KKK hood expressing the view that racism is at the heart of knowledge production at UCSD. What could be more clear? Really?
It’s your blog, but maybe, given the rose, you’d consider not assuming that some racist white person did it and then stoking up anti-white sentiment by stating this online.
March 3, 2010 at 9:52 am
Angus Johnston
Mike, I haven’t offered an interpretation of the hood. I never said that there couldn’t be more than one interpretation, I merely said that one particular interpretation didn’t seem “particularly likely to me.”
I am not making any assumptions about who did this or why. I haven’t made them on this site, and I’m not making them privately. I am agnostic on the question.
You, on the other hand, are insisting that that there’s only one valid interpretation of the incident. And you’re insisting on it in the absence of any solid evidence.
You have a theory about the meaning of the hood. I get that. I get what your theory is, and I get why you hold it. I don’t find your theory as compelling as you do, but I’m not saying it’s wrong — because, once again, we don’t have enough evidence to make a determination.
Let’s be absolutely clear on that. You, the supposed defender of facts and rationality, are asserting that only an analysis that comports with your ideological perspective is defensible, while I, the ostensible opponent of “facts, reason, and logic,” am asking that we not draw any conclusions until we have more data. That’s what’s happening right now. That’s what’s going on in this conversation.
You’re demanding that others “wait for facts” before drawing conclusions, and attacking anyone who refuses to do so as an intellectually and morally corrupt opportunist. And yet you yourself refuse, in the face of my repeated requests, to do what you demand that the rest of us do.
March 3, 2010 at 10:03 am
Mike McGee
Maybe you’d like to explain to your readers, then, why it doesn’t seem particularly likely to you that a student of color or white student in solidarity with black students at UCSD planted the hood and rose there. Why does it seem more likely to you that a racist student did it? That’s what you’re saying or at least heavily implying . . . That you’re willing to suspend judgement, but in all likelihood it was some racist white person. Sure, you’re not saying racist white person, but you’re saying that other possibilities aren’t likely.
Maybe you’d also like to explain what you think a rose in the hand of a KKK mask wearing Dr. Suess means to you, since my interpretation (which is really a straightforward reading of straightforward symbols) is obviously “ideological.” Symbols are facts as much as anything else, and the rose in fact is a clear symbol.
March 3, 2010 at 10:14 am
Angus Johnston
There are multiple possible interpretations of this event, and I’m not wedded to any of them. The one you’re so convinced is correct is probably third or fourth on my list.
Would I be shocked if your version of events turned out to be accurate? No. Would I be shocked if it were an avowedly racist act, or someone’s idea of a prank, or a hoax? No, no, and no. It could be any of those things. I just don’t know. We just don’t know.
And one of the things we don’t know, by the way, is whether the rose was placed in the statue’s hand by the same person who placed the hood on its head. It’s entirely possible that one person placed the rose there as a an anti-racist gesture — enlisting Seuss into the rose campaign — and that someone else later placed the hood. Once again, we don’t know.
You say that the rose is “a clear symbol,” but you are guessing as to what it represents. You’re guessing. Your guess may be a good guess, or it may be a bad guess, but it’s a guess. And yet you present your guessing as the apotheosis of fact-based rationality, and my refusal to guess as a triumph of ideology over logic.
And in so doing, you completely misrepresent what I’ve said in this thread.
March 3, 2010 at 10:40 am
Mike McGee
How am I guessing what the rose is a symbol of? It was given all of its symbolic weight over the past week. Everyone at UCSD knows it’s a symbol of solidarity with black students.
How am I guessing what a KKK mask on the head of a white man accused across the humanities of racism is a symbol of?
Angus, are you just guessing that a noose is a symbol of American racism?
Are you just guessing that blackface parties with watermelon symbolize white supremacy?
Really, because if we’re just going to let symbols be anybody’s guess, then the whole conversation is based on the intentional fallacy, and nobody (including protestors) has any ground to stand on.
Granted, you don’t like my interpretation of the symbols. (You might disagree that satan is an anti-hero in Paradise Lost, or you might claim that the road Robert Frost’s speaker took actually did make all the difference, or that Shakespeare himself really meant what Pelonius said about being true to thine own self, but whatever; I’ve had conversations like that in classrooms for years). What I don’t understand is how in the world you get from these symbols (a rose of solidarity and a mask of racism on a white man) to an avowedly racist act? How is that even on the radar as a possible interpretation?
And how far down your list was the noose in the library being hung by a non-white woman? Tell us honestly, please.
March 3, 2010 at 10:47 am
Angus Johnston
You’re guessing as to the connection between the rose and the hood, as I explicitly stated, and as I explained. Whether the rose was placed by the same person who placed the hood is unknown, so we can’t confidently use the rose as evidence of the intent of the person who placed the hood, as you insist we do.
You treat the placement of the hood and the rose as a single act, as an “it.” But you have no evidence to support that.
But we’re going around in circles at this point.
March 3, 2010 at 11:02 am
Mike McGee
No we’re not. Not exactly. Not if we can move the discussion forward. How do you get from these symbols to the likelihood (up toward the top of your list) of an avowedly racist act? How is that even a possibility for you?
Even if you separate the rose from the hood, how do you get from a KKK hood on the statue of a man whose birthday was just cancelled because of concerns about his early racism to the likelihood that this was the symbolic act of a racist? Some white guy is saying, “Hey, we’re in control here. Look. I’m putting a KKK hood on Dr. Seuss to assert our supremacy.” That’s your interpretation of the mask on Dr. Seuss?
March 3, 2010 at 11:07 am
Mike McGee
Not “your only interpretation,” mind you. Just one of them; but you do have, you yourself admit, a hierarchy of likely interpretations, so it’s not like you–as you claim–are agnostic on the question. You honestly seem to believe that of all possible interpretations, a racist act is the most likely one, or at least in the top three, and that an activist statement in solidarity with black students is the least likely. I want to know why, and how you read the symbols to get there.
This whole fiasco, from day, is about interpretation and ownership of symbols. So let’s get to the heart of it.
March 3, 2010 at 11:23 am
Angus Johnston
My own guesses are guesses, and my rankings aren’t particularly important.
When I said your guess was “probably third or fourth on my list,” I meant only that I don’t consider it a particularly likely interpretation, but that I don’t reject it either. There are four or five or six things that this could have been, and yours is one of them. I’d be a little more surprised if yours turned out to be the truth than I would if some of the others did, but that’s it.
How is it possible that this could have been a racist act? The hood is a symbol of race hatred. If you wanted to indicate that racists were in control of the campus, appropriating one of the campus’s most prominent symbols as a representative of your cause would be one way to do that. Just as giving Seuss a rose might mean “he stands with us against racism,” giving him a Klan hood might mean “he stands with us against students of color.”
And no, I’m not interested in arguing about how likely this is, for the reasons I’ve stated over and over again. I think it’s time for us to end this conversation, because we’re clearly not getting through to each other.
March 3, 2010 at 11:40 am
Mike McGee
Yeah. Okay. At universities, the hood is a symbol of how white people have protected institutions of racism.
Your assumption that white nationalist racists would want or need to appropriate Dr. Seuss is astounding. What is it about the speaker of this symbol that would need or want Dr. Seuss to assert his or her power? If you have an interpretation of the symbol, you also need an interpretation of the speaker. You really think a white supremacist would need or want to claim Dr. Suess? Are you kidding me?
I can tell you why a person of color or person in solidarity would want to underscore Dr. Seuss’s racism given his centrality in front of the library, a place of knowledge production. But why do you assume, given the possible interpretations, that a white person has the best motive for a hood on Dr. Seuss? What is it about white people that makes you assume they’re more likely to be motivated by racial hatred than anyone else? Who do you imagine this person is?
I know you don’t want to speculate (even as you speculate), but, again, the administration is hiding the facts, so we’re not going to ever have them. All we have are the symbols and, as I stated, the whole thing is about ownership and interpretation of symbols.
March 3, 2010 at 11:48 am
Angus Johnston
You continue to misrepresent my statements. I’m not assuming anything, I never said anything about any interpretation being “the best,” and I never said anything about the likelihood that white people were the perpetrators of this incident.
But you’re right about one thing: If I don’t want to speculate, I should stop. So I will. Have a good day.
March 3, 2010 at 1:58 pm
Benito Juarez
June 4, 1977: An original poem composed for the 99th Commencement of Lake Forest College by Theodor Seuss Geisel (a.k.a Dr. Seuss). Eugene Hotchkiss III was president of Lake Forest College from 1970 to 1993.
On Dr. Seuss’s piece of paper were these words:
My Uncle Terwilliger on
the Art of Eating Popovers
My uncle ordered popovers
from the restaurant’s bill of fare.
And, when they were served,
he regarded them
with a penetrating stare…
Then he spoke great Words of Wisdom
as he sat there on that chair:
“To eat these things,”
said my uncle,
“you must exercise great care.
You may swallow down what’s solid…
BUT…
you must spit out the air!”
And…
as you partake of the world’s bill of fare,
that’s darned good advice to follow.
Do a lot of spitting out the hot air.
And be careful what you swallow.
—Dr. Seuss
Dr. Seuss Keeps Me Guessing
A Commencement story by President Emeritus Eugene Hotchkiss III
As Theodor Geisel (a.k.a Dr. Seuss) stepped forward to join me at the podium on a bright spring day in 1977, I began nervously to read the citation accompanying the degree the College would be awarding him on this occasion. Although he was listed in the program as the Commencement speaker, I was uncertain if he would accept his degree with anything more than a thank you. And thereby hangs a tale.
The search for a Commencement speaker that year had been unusually frustrating and unsuccessful; one after another of those recommended by the seniors declined. I recall to this day the visit from a reporter of the Stentor, who was preparing copy for the final issue of the year. He pled unsuccessfully with me to give him the name of the individual who would address the graduating class. Alas, at that late hour not even I knew who he or she might be. Suddenly I recalled that a trustee of the College, Kenneth Montgomery, had once told me that should I ever need a speaker he would be willing to approach his good friend Ted Geisel and invite him to the campus. “Green eggs and ham,” thought I. “Why not?”
A phone contact was made by Trustee Montgomery, who told me that Mr. Geisel would be pleased to be honored at the Commencement ceremony. I quickly informed the Stentor, and the word was out: Dr. Seuss would be the Commencement speaker. The seniors were elated, but I was told that some faculty expressed the opinion that my choice just proved that the Seuss books were likely the last ones I had ever read!
Still, I relaxed…until, responding to a formal invitation I had written describing the nature of Commencement and his talk, Mr. Geisel called to say that there must have been a mistake. He thought he was being asked to receive a degree, not to talk. “I talk with people, not to people,” he declared, and if, he continued, I was proposing that he give an address, there had been a grave mistake. No, he reported just days before Commencement, he would not agree to speak.
As I pondered my choices I grasped onto his statement to me, and I urged him to arrive early Friday afternoon so that he might talk with the graduates at the senior reception. And then, talking with him in person, I would attempt to persuade him to talk to the graduates, albeit if only briefly. He agreed to come to the campus as early has he could on Friday, although because he lived in California and would be flying against the clock, the odds of a timely arrival were slim indeed.
The events on the day preceding Commencement were several, and each was surreptitiously extended so that the reception would be delayed, anticipating Mr. Geisel’s late arrival. Happily, shortly after the now-delayed reception began, he joined my wife, Sue, and me in the receiving line and did indeed talk with the graduates and many others, even autographing some well-loved Dr. Seuss books. Still, I wondered, would he be willing to say anything from the podium the next day?
Both before and after dinner that Friday evening, I talked with him informally, hoping the influence of good wine might soften his resolve as it strengthened mine. I urged him to respond following the awarding of his degree, but he did not waiver. Perhaps the best that could be made of a desperate situation, thought I, was to announce at the Commencement that, as he requested, he had indeed talked with the graduates on Friday and to thank him for his cordiality. The evening came to an end — well, almost, for I did not sleep well that night, and I could hear the seniors partying and, undoubtedly, discussing the talk their much-liked Dr. Seuss would give.
On Commencement morning, as the honored guests robed in their academic regalia, I again asked Mr. Geisel if he would be willing to say but a few words, acknowledging his degree. Still his silence was penetrating. Finally the time came to read his citation. As I reached its end and as Faculty Marshals Rosemary Cowler and Franz Schulze stepped forth to place the hood over his head, I spoke these penultimate words, for which I must credit my wife, Sue: “We proclaim you not the ‘Cat in the Hat’ but the ‘Seuss in the Noose’.” And then I awarded him the College’s degree of Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa.
At that moment, fearing his response, I shook his hand in a whisper and asked him if he would be willing to say a few words. He reached under his academic gown, announcing loudly for all to hear that it was “a bathrobe,” pulled out a piece of paper from his shirt pocket and turned to the microphone. And the rest, as they say, is history.
http://www.lakeforest.edu/alumni/spectrum/spring04/seuss.asp
March 3, 2010 at 2:20 pm
Milton
“Do a lot of spitting out the hot air.
And be careful what you swallow.”
All of us including myself can benefit from this advice. Cheers
March 3, 2010 at 2:23 pm
Chuckly
hey guys just to let you know that as someone who represents those who helped organize and put the roses in the Library at UCSD we are shocked appalled dismayed but not discouraged at the use of one of our Peace and Love Roses attached to that statue with the Hood. Those roses were put there by members of different Faith communities at UCSD. We will conyinue acts of love to combat the hate and will try again today to reclaim our campus for love, peace and equality so join us at Noon at the Statue today to help us out and bring a rose.
March 3, 2010 at 2:57 pm
Mike McGee
Surely you will reply, Angus, because Chuckly posted with an assumption that the rose was taken by someone and attached to the statue in a “shocking” and “appalling” act of hate that has to be combatted. This is, of course, speculation, but the kind of speculation that comports with student activism (on the left). Meaning it gets to stand without you noting that speculation isn’t allowed?
March 3, 2010 at 3:13 pm
Angus Johnston
Actually, Mike, that’s not what she said. She said that she and her colleagues are shocked and appalled, as I assume they are. That’s not speculation, it’s a statement of her own response, as a campus member, to the incident.
You’ve posted to this thread thirteen times, by the way. You’re not exactly being stifled.
March 3, 2010 at 3:30 pm
Mike McGee
C’mon. If she was shocked and appalled, it can only be because she believes it was an act of hate; she’s shocked and appalled because someone put it there for only one reason. That’s so clearly the implication that it’s just willful to ignore it. “Shocked and appalled” is only being used in the context of condemning certain acts as acts of hate. It echos the language of the administration exactly.
Please. You just happen to agree with her, so you think it’s objective. Just state your biases.
March 3, 2010 at 4:17 pm
Chuckly
I am shocked and appalled that my symbol of love is now associated with that hood and allit represents.
March 3, 2010 at 5:01 pm
Mike McGee
But you don’t know what that hood represents. What it could represent is the view of many students that Dr. Seuss is a racist. You’re jumping to the conclusion that this couldn’t possibly be a critique of the racism at the heart of the campus’ knowledge production . . . its library. And because you’re being unreasoned in your reaction, you’re reproducing the idea that this must be another act of hate.
Did you know that the cerebral cortex isn’t fully formed until a person is 26?
March 3, 2010 at 5:02 pm
Mike McGee
But you don’t know what that hood represents. What it could represent is the view of many students that Dr. Seuss is a racist. You’re jumping to the conclusion that this couldn’t possibly be a critique of the racism at the heart of the campus’ knowledge production . . . its library. And because you’re being unreasoned in your reaction, you’re reproducing the idea that this must be another act of hate.
Did you know that the cerebral cortex isn’t fully formed until a person is 26? This (plus his experience of Eastern Bloc communism) might be the underlying reason Milan Kundera suggested that no-one enter politics until the age of 30. Or, as I like to put it, never trust anyone under 30. Having been there, I know.
March 3, 2010 at 11:34 pm
Milton
Mike McGee: You need to take a time out buddy, I am afraid you will explode.
March 3, 2010 at 11:41 pm
Mike McGee
I’m a dialectical super hero. A lot like your namesake, actually.