Why?

Somewhere in the dead of night last Tuesday, four students fastened a fish hook to a cardboard effigy of Sen. Barack Obama and hung the line from a tree on the campus of George Fox University, a small private Christian school nestled in the rural community of Newberg, Ore. (population 21,000). Around the neck of the cardboard cutout of Obama was a note reading, "Act Six reject," a reference to an affirmative-action-style program on campus that seeks out students from urban areas who often happen to have minority ethnic backgrounds. Discovered by custodians and at least two students, the distasteful display came down before it could be exposed to the entire 1,700-population student body—but not before the ugly incident made the national news.

The perpetrators, whose names and motives weren't released to the media, face long-term suspension and community service for penance, according to the university, which announced their confession late Tuesday. The U.S. Secret Service and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are investigating whether a hate crime or a threat has occurred (local cops quickly concluded no state laws were violated). And the campus is in the midst of a swirling debate about the meaning of the episode. Was it a political statement? A suggestion that Obama somehow was unfairly advantaged by affirmative action? Or was Obama's image simply the clearest way to communicate the frustration some white students feel about programs such as Act Six?

"How can you not think of race, when you see an image like that hanging from a tree?" said Melanie Hulbert, an assistant professor of sociology at the school, who didn't actually see it. "We've all spent some time trying to hypothesize what this individual was thinking."

The lynching imagery was especially disturbing to minority students. "We have a hard time understanding the meaning behind it," says Vanessa Wilkins, a 19-year-old sophomore at George Fox who is in the Act Six program. "Obviously it was against Sen. Obama, and it brought back a lot of horrible racial connotations with the fact that he was hanging from his neck in a tree." Wilkins is of Guatemalan and Mexican descent.

Campus administrators, who announced Tuesday that the students involved had confessed but didn't reveal the culprits' explanations, insist that this is an isolated case that doesn't reflect on the belief systems of those who walk George Fox's hallways. The school's traditions are based on the Quaker faith, and the Quakers famously participated in the Underground Railroad, helping slaves to freedom. In a campus-wide speech on Thursday, the school's president made clear that the incident was not Christian. "We absolutely cannot hate those around us and say that we love God," Robin Baker said. "It is not possible."

Early on, some bloggers suspected a setup by a liberal student who wanted to make the school look bad. Others say it could be nothing more than a dumb prank by someone who was unaware of all the racial undertones of the act. The mystery motive leaves the campus with no clear answer about whether this is indicative more of blatant racism or ignorance about the power of symbols. Whatever the agenda, the case could be an opportunity for a new discussion about race at George Fox, where minority enrollment jumped from 16 to 25 percent between 2006 and 2007.