Reports that the white supremacist manifesto of the Christchurch shooter in New Zealand was being sent to students’ phones at Syracuse University were recently debunked as a hoax, as reported by local news affiliate Pix 11.
Syracuse’s chancellor, Kent Syverud, confirmed the hoax to the university’s student senate on Wednesday, saying “it was apparent that this rumor was probably a hoax.”
On Monday around 11:30 P.M., a rumor began circulating that the shooter’s manifesto was posted “in an online forum” and that someone subsequently attempted to remotely send it to students’ cell phones in the library via the iPhone feature known as “AirDrop.”
Syverud said that because of how late the incident was reported, university authorities were not able to adequately respond, and a “wave of alarm…quickly spread on social media” before it could even be disproven.
Syracuse has faced numerous unproven allegations of hate speech in recent weeks. A black female student claimed, without evidence, that she was “verbally harassed by people leaving a party” at a fraternity on campus.
Despite the lack of evidence, the university rushed to punish the fraternity by suspending the entire organization, including cancelling all planned social events, and directly suspending four of the fraternity’s members. Ten other students accused in the incident who were not from Syracuse were reported to their respective universities.
Syverud has faced criticism recently from far-left students accusing him of not adequately handling the fake occurrences of “hate speech” and demanding his resignation, including protesters who disrupted a speech he was giving and others who marched to his house.