Kerri Frances Dunn, a psychology professor at prestigious Claremont—McKenna College in California, has been convicted of lying to police and attempted insurance fraud for falsely reporting to detectives and her insurance company that her car was vandalized in a hate crime in March. 

Our friends at Powerline have covered this story admirably. Mensnewsdaily has been all over the case, too.

Prosecutors alleged Dunn staged the hate—crime hoax to rally the Claremont Colleges against racism and intolerance.

She succeeded.

When Dunn made her phony claim of victimhood in a campus hate crime, the administration at Claremont—McKenna cancelled classes for the day, and held day—long 'anti—hate' rallies. Dunn's fraud was vastly compounded by the undue eagerness of college officials to believe her, and their rash and irresponsible action denying the students what they had paid for: a college education.

As the father of a son at a comparably—expensive private liberal arts college, I know all too vividly that it costs roughly $150 a day to keep him there. For the unlucky parents of Claremont McKenna students last year, that is money down the drain for that day. In fact, it is quite possible that the money was worse than wasted. Students learned a counter—productive lesson about the ease of manipulating the system, and of the lack of value their own college officials placed on their class time.

I believe that Claremont—McKenna owes a refund to all those who paid tuition for classes which were not delivered to them. Obviously, this will be expensive. But I would be surprised if the college could not make up the amount of the refund by de—funding other 'anti—hate' activities, or perhaps dropping a few administrators concerned with enforcing race, gender, and sexuality diktats.

If there are no consequences, they will never learn.

Posted by Thomas  8 23 04