Johns Hopkins University is investigating the discovery of a rope tied to a rope at a construction site in a building it owns off its Baltimore campus.
BALTIMORE (AP) – Johns Hopkins University is investigating the discovery of a rope tied to a rope at a construction site in a building it owns off its Baltimore campus.
Johns Hopkins officials have also notified federal authorities of what the university calls a possible hate crime, the Baltimore Sun reports.
“Johns Hopkins University condemns this act of hatred,” President Ronald J. Daniels said in an email message to the university community on Friday. “We find such horrifying and disgusting racist images and a direct threat to the black community in Johns Hopkins and Baltimore, opposing the values of fairness, justice and humanity to which we are firmly committed.”
Representatives of general contractor Plano-Coudon told university officials Thursday that a knot had been found at a site in Baltimore where the firm is renovating a laboratory that is part of the university’s Whiting School of Engineering.
The university’s Office of Institutional Equity is investigating in coordination with the general contractor, Johns Hopkins spokeswoman Karen Lancaster said. Lancaster said the company “has offered its full cooperation and support.”
Daniel Ennis, the university’s senior vice president for administration and finance, said the school closed the construction site.
“We take this matter extremely seriously,” he said. “Acts like this have no place in our society.”
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