In 2007 at George Washington University, Jewish freshman Sarah Marshak reported a series of swastikas appearing on her dorm-room whiteboard, sparking the usual campus panic, media coverage, FBI involvement, and solemn university statements about hate. Hidden cameras installed in the hallway then caught her drawing several of them herself. She later admitted to the last three, explaining that she only did it to force the administration to take an earlier one more seriously. University officials, after reviewing the footage and her statements, concluded she had drawn more than she claimed and had been dishonest with both police and the press. A separate student was caught in another dorm drawing swastikas and racial slurs around the same time. Most likely trying to create their own hoax for fake liberal tear sympathy.

None of this is especially shocking. Campus graffiti “hate crimes” that turn out to have been produced by the supposed victim have been a recurring feature of university life for years; the pattern is familiar enough that the only real surprise is when one of them actually isn’t a hoax. Marshak’s version—draw a few extra swastikas so the first one gets the attention it “deserves”—is just a slightly more enterprising take on a well-worn script. The university still had to treat the reports as potentially serious until the cameras made that impossible, which is how these things usually go. As for any circulating NY Post screenshot of the episode, that particular image is a fabricated composite.