A University of Illinois student pleaded guilty on Tuesday to misdemeanor disorderly conduct for crafting a noose made of string and leaving it in a residence hall elevator in September 2019.
ABC News reports Andrew Smith, a native of the small town of Normal, Illinois, was originally charged with a hate crime, which is a felony. He eventually opted into a plea agreement by Champaign County Circuit Judge Heidi Ladd for the lesser charge.
The 20-year-old also had three other misdemeanor disorderly conduct charges, where victims said the racist imagery “alarmed and disturbed” them, dismissed in exchange for his guilty plea.
Smith’s plea deal saves him from having a criminal record as long as he serves 50 hours of public services, pays a $75 fine and adheres to the guidelines imposed by his court supervision.
“He wrote apology letters and appeared sincere,” State’s Attorney Julia Rietz said, adding that police investigating the case found Smith had “no history of racial prejudice.”
According to CBS Chicago, Rietz’s office tried to reach the victims detailed in the charges about the case's resolution. Just one person replied and said she “was fine” with the recommended punishment for Smith.
Assistant State’s Attorney Justin Umlah said Smith told police on Sept. 2 that the noose was tied to stories of campus buildings being haunted. He also said the knot he made was coincidentally racist and it was a decision he didn't think about for long.
A female friend who was with Smith at the time of the incident was the one to report Smith’s misconduct.
In January of 2019, a federal lawsuit was filed by Black employees at the university that alleged numerous instances of racial harassment. The lawsuit also claimed the school’s Office of Diversity, Equity and Access (now the Office for Access and Equity) is riddled with "internal racial harassment.”
“UIUC supervisors and other employees frequently use racial slurs and offensive stereotypes, calling black employees ‘n*ggers,’ ‘boy,’ ‘monkey,’ ‘lazy,’ ‘angry,’ ‘rowdy,’ and ‘Aunt Jemima,’ and using other offensive racial language," a university employee stated in the lawsuit.
The university employees’ attorney Joshua Friedman said Illinois’ nondiscrimination policy doesn’t prevent this kind of harassment because the school officials view these incidents as “not severe or pervasive” enough to be deemed a violation.
In February, the lawsuit was expanded to include the entire University of Illinois system after an employee at the metro Chicago campus accused co-workers of calling him “a Black guy that looks like a Aunt Jemima with a hat on my head.”
Spokespersons at the university have said on multiple occasions since Smith’s incident that “discrimination of any kind has no place at the University of Illinois.”
