Nooses: A Nationwide Epidemic

*Central Michigan University Police are offering a $500 reward for information on the four nooses found in a classroom.

*Unhappy with their school's response, students at North Carolina State University organized a discussion after a student discovered a toilet paper noose two weeks ago.

*Vassar College and Purdue University are investigating their own incidents, while Miami University is debating what to do about an art project with "noose-like ropes" and a tire swing.

*Yale University is dealing with its own racially charged expressionism, looking into who scrawled a vulgar racial epithet outside a prominent school building. "Hate speech or hate writing violate the core values of Yale," said a school official. "These issues unfortunately just don't go away. They require eternal vigilance."

*Lastly, a newspaper editor from Minneapolis Community and Technical College was fired last month after hanging a noose from the ceiling as a joke threat to writers who missed deadlines. Since then, campus leaders have argued that the college's response to the incident was slow and less than transparent. The news editor who was fired said he was unaware of the historical implications of the noose and also oblivious to the controversy in Jena, La., around the same time. "I heard about something to do with a noose, but I didn't even think of it," he said. "I don't watch the news."