FOR an hour or two on a foggy morning last December, some students at the University of Iowa (UI) mistook one of their professors, Serhat Tanyolacar, for a fan of the Ku Klux Klan.
MrTanyolacar had placed a canvas effigy based on Klan robes, screen-printed with news cuttings about racial violence, on the Pentacrest, the university’s historic heart.
The effigy had a camera in its hood to record public reactions.The reaction among some black students was to fear for their safety, and that is not surprising.
What is more of a puzzle—for anyone outside American academia, at least—is that students and UI bosses continued denouncing Mr Tanyolacar for threatening campus safety even after the misunderstanding was cleared up.
In vain did the Turkish-born academic explain that he is a “social-political artist”, using Klan imagery to provoke debate about racism.
Under pressure from angry students, university chiefs issued two separate apologies.
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