Ole Miss noose
Ole Miss noose, The Justice Department has indicted a former Ole Miss student on civil rights charges after he allegedly hung a noose on a statue of his university's first black student.
Graeme Phillip Harris, 20, of Alpharetta, Georgia, has been indicted on one count of conspiracy to violate civil rights and one count of using a threat of force to intimidate African-American students.
The indictment is connected to a February 2014 incident in which a noose and a former Georgia flag, prominently featuring the Confederate battle emblem, were placed on a statue of James Meredith.
Harris, who is white, was an Ole Miss student when the noose was left on the statue.
It wasn't immediately clear whether Harris had an attorney to contact for comment on his behalf.
University spokesman Danny Blanton said Friday that Harris is no longer enrolled and that university officials turned the case over to federal prosecutors and deferred to their judgment..
Harris has transferred to University of North Georgia – Oconee Campus, according to the Daily Mississippian.
He is free on bond, though his movement is restricted to areas of Georgia and Mississippi.
James Meredith, who integrated the University of Mississippi under federal protection a half-century ago, says it's a shame that state authorities deferred to the federal government to bring charges.
Mr Meredith, who is 81 and lives in Jackson, said state authorities should have pursed charges.
'What it is saying is that the only possible justice for a black in the state of Mississippi is the federal government and if there's anything that we don't need it's that being our only means of expecting justice,' Mr Meredith said in a phone interview Friday.
'I think Mississippi is better than that. If it's not better than that, it should be made better than that.'
The Lafayette County district attorney said in 2014 that state charges wouldn't be filed because no state laws were broken.
Mississippi's hate crime law requires an underlying crime for additional charges. Because the statute wasn't marred or broken, prosecutors said typical vandalism charges didn't apply.
The punishment for conspiracy to violate civil rights ranges to up to ten years in prison.Threat of force to intimidate is punishable by up to one year in prison.
In 1962, anti-integration protests erupted into violence and Meredith had to be escorted by armed federal agents as he enrolled under court order as the first black student at the university.
In announcing the indictment of Harris on Friday, Attorney General Eric Holder said of the noose incident: 'This shameful and ignorant act is an insult to all Americans and a violation of our most strongly-held values.
'No one should ever be made to feel threatened or intimidated because of what they look like or who they are,' Holder said in a news release.
'By taking appropriate action to hold wrongdoers accountable, the Department of Justice is sending a clear message that flagrant infringements of our historic civil rights will not go unnoticed or unpunished.'
Hundreds of Ole Miss students attended a racial reconciliation rally on campus after the 2014 incident.'It has taken time, but the process has worked and I'm confident justice will be done,' Ole Miss Chancellor Dan Jones said in a statement Friday.
'I am thankful for the strong, united response of our university community to the desecration of the James Meredith statue last year, confirming our university values of civility and respect.'
The national office of Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity suspended its Ole Miss chapter after three of the chapter's members were accused of leaving the noose and flag on the Meredith statue.
Names of the three white freshmen students from Georgia were not released at the time.
Federal authorities' investigation into the incident is still ongoing.
The recent indictment against Harris comes as another fraternity chapter, Sigma Alphia Epsilon at University of Oklahoma, was suspended after a video showed them singing a racist song about lynching on a bus.
Members of the organization were found to have learned the chant informally at a national leadership cruise.Other fraternities are currently being investigated for allegedly racist behavior.
The Meredith statue was erected in 2006 near the main administrative building at Ole Miss, the Lyceum.
In a 2012 autobiography, Mr Meredith said the university should destroy the statue because he said it trivialized his effort to destroy a system of white supremacy that had long dominated Mississippi, his native state.
'I have become a piece of art, a tourist attraction, a soothing image on the civil rights tour of the South, a public relations tool for the powers that be at Ole Miss, and feel-good icon of brotherly love and racial reconciliation, frozen in gentle docility,' Mr Meredith wrote.
The university banned Confederate battle flags from football games in 2003 and changed its mascot, Confederate Colonel Reb, for a black bear in 2010.
White students at Ole Miss in 2012 started a protest the night of President Barack Obama's reelection in which they burned his signs and racial epithets were heard being shouted.
Graeme Phillip Harris, 20, of Alpharetta, Georgia, has been indicted on one count of conspiracy to violate civil rights and one count of using a threat of force to intimidate African-American students.
The indictment is connected to a February 2014 incident in which a noose and a former Georgia flag, prominently featuring the Confederate battle emblem, were placed on a statue of James Meredith.
Harris, who is white, was an Ole Miss student when the noose was left on the statue.
It wasn't immediately clear whether Harris had an attorney to contact for comment on his behalf.
University spokesman Danny Blanton said Friday that Harris is no longer enrolled and that university officials turned the case over to federal prosecutors and deferred to their judgment..
Harris has transferred to University of North Georgia – Oconee Campus, according to the Daily Mississippian.
He is free on bond, though his movement is restricted to areas of Georgia and Mississippi.
James Meredith, who integrated the University of Mississippi under federal protection a half-century ago, says it's a shame that state authorities deferred to the federal government to bring charges.
Mr Meredith, who is 81 and lives in Jackson, said state authorities should have pursed charges.
'What it is saying is that the only possible justice for a black in the state of Mississippi is the federal government and if there's anything that we don't need it's that being our only means of expecting justice,' Mr Meredith said in a phone interview Friday.
'I think Mississippi is better than that. If it's not better than that, it should be made better than that.'
The Lafayette County district attorney said in 2014 that state charges wouldn't be filed because no state laws were broken.
Mississippi's hate crime law requires an underlying crime for additional charges. Because the statute wasn't marred or broken, prosecutors said typical vandalism charges didn't apply.
The punishment for conspiracy to violate civil rights ranges to up to ten years in prison.Threat of force to intimidate is punishable by up to one year in prison.
In 1962, anti-integration protests erupted into violence and Meredith had to be escorted by armed federal agents as he enrolled under court order as the first black student at the university.
In announcing the indictment of Harris on Friday, Attorney General Eric Holder said of the noose incident: 'This shameful and ignorant act is an insult to all Americans and a violation of our most strongly-held values.
'No one should ever be made to feel threatened or intimidated because of what they look like or who they are,' Holder said in a news release.
'By taking appropriate action to hold wrongdoers accountable, the Department of Justice is sending a clear message that flagrant infringements of our historic civil rights will not go unnoticed or unpunished.'
Hundreds of Ole Miss students attended a racial reconciliation rally on campus after the 2014 incident.'It has taken time, but the process has worked and I'm confident justice will be done,' Ole Miss Chancellor Dan Jones said in a statement Friday.
'I am thankful for the strong, united response of our university community to the desecration of the James Meredith statue last year, confirming our university values of civility and respect.'
The national office of Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity suspended its Ole Miss chapter after three of the chapter's members were accused of leaving the noose and flag on the Meredith statue.
Names of the three white freshmen students from Georgia were not released at the time.
Federal authorities' investigation into the incident is still ongoing.
The recent indictment against Harris comes as another fraternity chapter, Sigma Alphia Epsilon at University of Oklahoma, was suspended after a video showed them singing a racist song about lynching on a bus.
Members of the organization were found to have learned the chant informally at a national leadership cruise.Other fraternities are currently being investigated for allegedly racist behavior.
The Meredith statue was erected in 2006 near the main administrative building at Ole Miss, the Lyceum.
In a 2012 autobiography, Mr Meredith said the university should destroy the statue because he said it trivialized his effort to destroy a system of white supremacy that had long dominated Mississippi, his native state.
'I have become a piece of art, a tourist attraction, a soothing image on the civil rights tour of the South, a public relations tool for the powers that be at Ole Miss, and feel-good icon of brotherly love and racial reconciliation, frozen in gentle docility,' Mr Meredith wrote.
The university banned Confederate battle flags from football games in 2003 and changed its mascot, Confederate Colonel Reb, for a black bear in 2010.
White students at Ole Miss in 2012 started a protest the night of President Barack Obama's reelection in which they burned his signs and racial epithets were heard being shouted.
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