Today a Quaker-founded college which boasts of being “Christ-centered,” George Fox University, is gaining national attention after an effigy of Barack Obama was found hanging from a tree on the campus. Evidently the “lyncher” meant to members of the Act Six program, which provides scholarships to minority students from the Portland area.

According to Northwest Cable News:

Administrators at George Fox University are trying to figure out who hung what appears to be a life-sized effigy of Barack Obama outside the college campus in Newburg.

It appeared whoever did it had a specific target.

The attached message referred to the “Act Six” program at George Fox University which is a scholarship program for minorities.

Late Tuesday night, a university spokesman confirmed to Newschannel 8 that someone discovered the life-sized effigy of Barack Obama around 7 a.m. Tuesday.

It was hanging from the neck with fishing line at the campus communications building, a campus spokesman confirmed.

Rob Felton, a spokesperson for the university, described the item as a “cardboard cut out” of Obama which had the words "act six reject" written on it.

The faux-lynching can hardly be construed as pacifistic, and while I’m all for freedom of speech no matter how offensive, the lyncher needs to grow a pair and assume accountability for his or her free speech, not hide behind a cardboard cutout. How can we respect such perspectives as worth considering if the person behind them cannot even stand by them by acknowledging ownership of opinion?