Matt Lamb, associate editor of The College Fix, says the University of Maryland, Baltimore County has halted its investigation into an alleged November assault on a female Muslim student "pending further investigative leads."
The hate and bias investigation document* labeled the incident "inconclusive" and other information obtained by The College Fix through a public records request point to the strong possibility of a hoax.
An unnamed Muslim student reported physical assault by "an unknown male [who] attempted to remove her hijab," according to a November 17 crime alert. The incident allegedly happened November 16 in The Commons, the public university's student center, sometime between 5:00 pm and when the university sent out the alert at 6:52 pm. The police could not see the incident occur on the video footage reviewed for November 16.
"If someone says an assault happened in this certain area, and there's video cameras on directed at that area during that time, and they don't show anything, it certainly points to a hoax," Lamb submits. "The fact that she won't talk to the police unless there's video evidence points to it being a hoax."
Lamb says this alleged incident appears to be similar to a hoax reported at a nearby school.
"Just across the Potomac in Virginia, there actually around the same time was a hoax exposed by another publication, where a female Muslim student also said she was assaulted," the associate editor notes. "I don't remember if her hijab was ripped off, too, but it's kind of interesting that these two things seemed to happen around the same time."
The Maryland Muslim Student Association says it is "shocked, disgusted, and outraged" by the reported assault on "one of our own sisters in Faith."
* Editor's note: The hate and bias investigation document has been removed from Scribd.com.
