White GWU professor who posed as Black resigns

The professor at George Washington University (GWU) who admitted in a now-viral blog post to posing as Black for years has resigned from the school.

A statement from GWU officials Wednesday afternoon stated that Jessica Krug, who taught African American history at the university, “has resigned her position, effective immediately.”

“Her classes for this semester will be taught by other faculty members, and students in those courses will receive additional information this week,” the university added.

Krug’s resignation followed her suspension from teaching classes at the university over the blog post’s claims. GWU said at the time that it was reviewing options for Krug’s classes.

“While the university reviews this situation, Dr. Krug will not be teaching her classes this semester,” the university previously informed students and faculty, adding, “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.”

Krug’s work focused heavily on on issues of African culture and diaspora, and she had apparently claimed for years to be from the New York City borough of the the Bronx and to be of Puerto Rican descent. In a lengthy Medium post that many said came out of fear she had been discovered, Krug admitted that she “eschewed my lived experience as a white Jewish child in suburban Kansas City under various assumed identities within a Blackness that I had no right to claim: first North African Blackness, then US rooted Blackness, then Caribbean rooted Bronx Blackness.”

In other recently surfaced videos and old blog posts, Krug could be seen repeatedly claiming Puerto Rican ancestry, referring to herself by the fake name “Jess La Bombera,” and calling herself “an unrepentant and unreformed child of the hood.”

The history department at the university previously blasted her over the admission in a sharply worded statement accusing her of betraying the trust of her colleagues and students.

“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.