White GW professor who posed as Black will not teach classes this fall

Jessica Krug, the white African American history professor who this week admitted to posing as Black, will not be teaching classes this semester, George Washington University announced Friday. 

Through a Medium blog post published Thursday, Krug admitted that she had been lying about her racial identity. Krug, who for years claimed to be a Bronx native of Afro-Puerto Rican descent, clarified that she is in fact white and from the suburbs of Kansas City. 

“While the university reviews this situation, Dr. Krug will not be teaching her classes this semester,” the university said in a statement addressed to the “GW Community.” 

“We are working on developing a number of options for students in those classes, which will be communicated to affected students as soon as possible.”

Her GW profile lists Latin America, Africa and colonialism as her areas of expertise. Krug’s work centers heavily on issues of African culture and diaspora.

Her Medium post sparked outrage on social media, particularly among Black academics in her field. Several said Krug did not admit to lying about her identity “out of benevolence,” but because she realized she had been discovered. 

“We want to acknowledge the pain this situation has caused for many in our community and recognize that many students, faculty, staff and alumni are hurting,” the university statement added.  

The History Department at the university released a statement saying faculty was “shocked and appalled” at Krug’s blog post. 

“With what she has termed her ‘audaciously deceptive’ appropriation of an Afro-Caribbean identity, she has betrayed the trust of countless current and former students, fellow scholars of Africana Studies, colleagues in our department and throughout the historical discipline, as well as community activists in New York City and beyond,” the statement read.

Krug described herself in her now-deleted writer profile on Essence as “an unrepentant and unreformed child of the hood” and “boricua,” which means Puerto Rican.

Her public persona was in full view in a re-surfaced video of a New York City council meeting where Krug, who identified herself as “Jess la Bombera” criticized “all these white New Yorkers [who] did not yield their time to Black and brown indigenous New Yorkers.”

Krug has not made any public statements or media appearances since her Medium article.