Headlines
Graeme Harris, Student Who Tied Rope Around James Meredith Statue, Indicted
Photo by Amelia Camurati
Acting Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, U.S. Attorney Felicia C. Adams of the Northern District of Mississippi and Special Agent in Charge Donald Alway of the FBI Jackson Office announced today that a man was charged with federal civil rights crimes for engaging in threatening conduct directed at African American students and employees at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, Mississippi. Graeme Phillip Harris was indicted by a federal grand jury on one count of conspiracy to violate civil rights and one count of using a threat of force to intimidate African American students because of their race or color.
According to the charging documents, Harris, a student at the university, conspired with others to use the cover of darkness to hang a rope and an outdated version of the Georgia state flag, which prominently depicts the Confederate battle flag, around the neck of the James Meredith statue on the campus of the University of Mississippi, with the intent to threaten and intimidate African-American students and employees at the university. The iconic statue honors Meredith’s role as the university’s first African American student after its contentious 1962 integration. The incident occurred in the early morning hours of Feb. 16, 2014.
“This shameful and ignorant act is an insult to all Americans and a violation of our most strongly-held values,” said Attorney General Eric Holder. “No one should ever be made to feel threatened or intimidated because of what they look like or who they are. By taking appropriate action to hold wrongdoers accountable, the Department of Justice is sending a clear message that flagrant infringements of our historic civil rights will not go unnoticed or unpunished.”
An indictment is merely an accusation, and the defendant is presumed innocent unless proven guilty. The investigation is ongoing.
This case is being investigated by the FBI’s Jackson, Mississippi, Division’s Oxford Resident Agency and the University of Mississippi Police Department. The case is being prosecuted by the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Northern District of Mississippi.
| Sat, Aug 31 |  | vs Furman | W, 76-0 |
| Sat, Sep 7 |  | vs Middle Tennessee | W, 52-3 |
| Sat, Sep 14 |  | @ Wake Forest | W, 40-6 |
| Sat, Sep 21 |  | vs Georgia Southern | W, 52-13 |
| Sat, Sep 28 |  | vs Kentucky | L, 20-17 |
| Sat, Oct 5 |  | @ South Carolina | W, 27-3 |
| Sat, Oct 12 |  | vs LSU | L, 29-26 (2 OT) |
| Sat, Oct 26 |  | vs Oklahoma | W, 26-14 |
| Sat, Nov 2 |  | @ Arkansas | W, 63-35 |
| Sat, Nov 16 |  | vs Georgia | W, 28-10 |
| Sat, Nov 23 |  | @ Florida | 11:00 AM ABC or ESPN |
| Sat, Nov 30 |  | vs Mississippi State | 2:30 PM ESPN or ABC |
Armyguy
March 27, 2015 at 4:08 pm
While what the kid did was wrong, but trying to send him to prison is worse! Why is it that only whites can violate someone’s civil rights? Eric Holder is the true racist! If anyone belongs in prison, it is Holder!
carolynfry
March 27, 2015 at 4:19 pm
armyguy, it was a threat. A noose? Those are used to kill people, and in Mississippi, we just had a young person found hanging this year. I was afraid to let my students go to lab at dusk after that, white or black. Blacks, white, greens, and any other color skin CAN violate civil rights, but this young man was the one who did it. Not you, not me, but him. We need to clean up our campus and that’s what we are doing.
Real American
March 27, 2015 at 4:46 pm
This guy committed an act of terrorism meant to instill fear to a large subset of Americans. The meaning was clear, “this could be you next time”. He deserves what he got. He is lucky they don’t send him to Guantanamo.
yikes
March 27, 2015 at 4:55 pm
This is bull. If someone that is white put a rope under any white statue like rocky or Ben Franklin would anything happen…… No
If they were black Spanish Asian or any other race and did the same thing would anything happen …no
Although I don’t agree it was a smart thing to do why should he serve jail time when many other people rob people and kill people and are walking on the street. A statue is not a real person the last time I checked
Real American
March 27, 2015 at 5:05 pm
Bad analogy. First of all, black people don’t go around putting nooses on white people (or statues for that matter). However, there is a history of white people doing this to thousands if not millions of blacks through history. It is not an idle threat it is real.
A better analogy might be a black person threatening a white policeman since there is a history of animosity between them. If fact, when blacks have threatened white cops they have had the book thrown at them for that reason.
ragail@yahoo.com
March 27, 2015 at 5:21 pm
It’s an Indictment people, meaning that he did some sort of criminal act. He is not in prison and i doubt he will ever be, but he may get probation or other punishment, which is well deserving. Ole Miss is a GREAT university and I’m tried of acts of this nature continuing to tarnish us. Yes, we need to keep insanity off our campus. By the way Armyguy, what criminal act has Eric Holder committed? And please don’t tell me what you’ve heard, but what you’ve read and know as fact.
Robert Page
March 27, 2015 at 5:33 pm
He should be put in prison, without question!
Anyone who doesn’t understand why is ignorant, even if willfully so.
This act was a threat to every African American at the University of Mississippi and should not be tolerated.
Jim Hays
March 27, 2015 at 6:39 pm
Nobody got a statement to even try to find out what the “victim,” (the statue) thought. let he who is without fault, cast the first rock! There is enough “fault” here on both sides. Is there a statue of the 1st native American to enter Ole Miss, or the first Chinese or Japanese student. As far as that goes, is there a statue to the first “student”, white or polka dot. And if true equality is ever realized there are going to be so many statues they won’t have room for any new buildings. Com-on folks! lets use a little common sense along with this also!
Barbecue
March 27, 2015 at 9:33 pm
There are no monuments to Native Americans or Asians or other non-whites who broke barriers of race or ethnicity because no white lunch mobs threatened to shoot them or bury them in an earthen dam or dynamite their places of worship or (pointedly at issue here) dangle them from a noose.
What a pitiful argument.
And yes, I am white and I am an Ole Miss alumnus who is proud of what Ole Miss is today thanks to brave people of good will like James Meredith who had the courage to stand for decency and morality In spite of the hate and violence they evoked by doing so.
This indictment is welcome validation that the cowardly brutality that empowered yesteryear’s night-riding vigilantes is no longer OK. The 1950s are long dead. Get used to it, peckerwood.
Hotty toddy!
Barbara
March 27, 2015 at 10:21 pm
It was 2 drunk college kids. The statute was not damaged, no one was hurt, it was done in the middle of the night. Stupid? Yes. Prison? No. Eric Holder is a disgrace. This is our country too and we have the same rights as anyone else. This is going way too far.
Jim Hays
March 28, 2015 at 10:53 am
Barbeque, are you saying that no-one threatened the native Americans or shot them, etc. What we did to them was far worse than ANYTHING ever done to blacks. They not only lived in slavery to whites but were almost completely wiped out as a nation! And even today live under far worse conditions than the average Black. However, If you go far enough back in history, you’ll find that we are ALL to blame for some degree of infractions. That was then….this is now and it seems that you’re the one who need to get over it!.
Barbecue
March 28, 2015 at 1:15 pm
Must be lonely there on the wrong side of history – apologists for a decadent, dying and indefensible Old South.
The hourglass is running out. The cemetery beckons. Old times there WILL be forgotten.
Look away.
🙂
T
March 28, 2015 at 7:03 pm
That is a shameful thing to do and he should be punished. How this is federal charges that can carry imprisonment of 10 years for just the 1st charge, and how the three black thugs who viciously attacked a white man (the only white) on a bus for no reason in St. Louis is only a misdemeanor (less than a year in prison) is beyond me. But I sure am glad we have the FBI, the University police department, the Justice Department, and the US Attorney’s office all on the case of statue defacement….tax dollars at work.
Panjarri
March 30, 2015 at 10:11 pm
This kid was a naive 19 years old who ‘damaged’ no property or person and who clearly did not intend to threaten anyone’s well being – is now facing 10 years jail for a drunken high school prank. Your’e kidding me – right? Where is the hippocracy of this country headed ??
For all you self righteous finger pointing do gooders – have you never done something stupid when were drunk??