A University of Illinois student has been charged with a hate crime after a noose was found hanging in an elevator at a residence hall, school officials said Tuesday. Andrew M. Smith, a 19-year-old student at the Urbana-Champaign campus, was arrested and charged with a misdemeanor count of disorderly conduct and a felony count of committing a hate crime. The university said that at about 1 a.m. on Sunday, staff members of the residence building Allen Hall reported the discovery of a rope tied into a noose inside an elevator. “After investigating, Smith was identified as the offender,” the university said, adding that Smith was arrested inside the residence hall Monday night. According to the Champaign County Sheriff’s Office, Smith is scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday afternoon in Champaign County Circuit Court. The incident comes just months after black employees filed a class-action lawsuit against the campus, alleging they faced racial harassment and were “exposed to threats of racial violence, such as nooses, swastikas, KKK garb, racist graffiti, and confederate flags.”
