A White Professor Who Admitted To Pretending To Be Black During Her Career Has Resigned From GWU

Jessica Krug resigned from her teaching position Wednesday, a week after she admitted to pretending to be Black during her academic career.

A white professor who posed as Black during the entirety of her career at George Washington University has resigned, according to a letter sent to students from the university provost on Wednesday.

Jessica A. Krug confessed growing up in Kansas City as a white Jewish child in a Medium post published last week, sparking an investigation inside the university where she was a professor in the history department, specializing in Africa, Latin America, colonialism, and imperialism.

"Dr. Krug has resigned her position, effective immediately," M. Brian Blake, provost for the university, wrote in a short email to students.

In her written confession, Krug wrote that she pretended to be Black "as a youth" and continued to do so as an adult. She attributed her decision to "severe trauma that marked [her] early childhood and teen years."

Throughout the years, she wrote, she created different backgrounds to her pretended ethnicity, including lying about having North African and Caribbean roots, calling herself at one point "a culture leech."

The deception was a shocking revelation reminiscent of Rachel Dolezal, a former leader in the NAACP who in 2015 was discovered to have been a white woman pretending to be Black for years.

But although Dolezal continued to argue that she "identif[ied] as Black," Krug argued in her note that she should be "canceled."

"You should absolutely cancel me, and I absolutely cancel myself," she wrote.

Hari Ziyad, editor-in-chief of Racebaitr, tweeted that Krug was someone he once considered a friend and that the decision to come forward was because she "had been found out."

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