Wilfred Reilly – BYU Hate Crime Hoax, Oregon Hate Crime Fact

BLUF, any time there's a national hate crime hoax, we grab Dr Wilfred Reilly and break down the event.

In late August 2022, Rachel Richardson a female volleyball player from Duke university claimed she was verbally assaulted with racial epithets during a match hosted by the BYU lady's volleyball team in Provo.

The reaction was instant, and supportive of the player. The story went national with condemnations of BYU, its students and supporters. BYU identified the accused, took steps to ban that person from its facilities and began an investigation.

However, as we've seen in the past, it was a hate crime hoax.

The classic red flags popped up as the story spread. BYU opponents cancelled matches and denounced the school as teams looked to separate themselves from the "racist and unsafe" environment.

Ah, but patience was lacking. In true hate crime fashion, the truth mattered less than the fiction. BYU conducted an investigation interviewing dozens of people. They reviewed hours of footage taken at the game. BYU identified the accused, took steps to ban that person from its facilities wanting to get this right because they too found the alleged incident reprehensible.

And still, nothing...the banned individual was exonerated, and their access to BYU restored.

Fitting into the hoax schema BYU's investigation was called into question. In response a BYU official was quoted, "To the contrary, we have tried to be as thorough as possible in our investigation, and we renew our invitation for anyone with evidence contrary to our findings to come forward and share it," the school said.

Then in an ironic twist, students at Oregon, actually committed a hate crime by chanting religious bigoted epithets at BYU athletes during a football game at Oregon on 17Sept22.

Pete A Turner welcomes our friend Wil back to the Break It Down Show to discuss the latest hoax. Joining us is BYU alum and BIDS friend, Ryan Petty.