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Jessica Krug: U.S. professor who pretended to be Black resigns from university

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An American professor who confessed she had pretended to be Black for several years, resigned from the university where she taught, according to the institution.

The George Washington University released a statement confirming that Jessica Krug, who sparked heavy criticism after her admission, had left her post.

Shortly after her admission, the university had said that she “will no longer teach classes this semester.”

“Dr. Krug has resigned her position, effective immediately. Her classes for this semester will be taught by other faculty members, and students in those courses will receive additional information this week,” the university said in a statement.

“We hope that with this update our community can begin to heal and move forward.”

Last week, Krug published a post on Medium, an online publishing platform, admitting that she had lied to being Black for years, while she is actually a white, Jewish lady from Kansas City.

“To an escalating degree over my adult life, I have eschewed my lived experience as a white Jewish child in suburban Kansas City under various assumed identities within a Blackness that I had no right to claim: first North African Blackness, then US rooted Blackness, then Caribbean rooted Bronx Blackness,” she wrote.

Though Krug named mental health issues to “likely explain” why she assumed a false identity, she said they were not reason enough to excuse her actions.

“Mental health issues can never, will never, neither explain nor justify, neither condone nor excuse, that, in spite of knowing and regularly critiquing any and every non-Black person who appropriates from Black people, my false identity was crafted entirely from the fabric of Black lives.”

Krug, who was a history professor specializing in Africa and Latin America, has not yet commented on the situation, according to reports by U.S. media.

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