Obama effigy hung from tree

Officials of a small Christian university in Newberg say a life-size cardboard reproduction of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama was hung from a tree on campus, an act with racial undertones that outraged students and school leaders alike.

George Fox University President Robin Baker said a custodian discovered the effigy early Tuesday and removed it. University spokesman Rob Felton said that the commercially produced reproduction had been suspended from the branch of a tree with fishing line around the neck.

The disturbing sight found near the heart of the campus recalled the days of lynchings of blacks and was all the more incongruous at a university founded by Quaker pioneers in 1891. Felton said he had been at the school since he enrolled two decades ago, and “I’ve never experienced or heard of any type of overt racial act.”