‘She appeared then to be enamored with black people’
When Rachel Dolezal Moore was studying in the master of fine arts graduate program at Howard University, she was obviously immersed in black culture, a professor there said: Her then-husband, Kevin Moore, was black. She was enrolled at a predominantly black university. And the subjects of her narrative portrait paintings were black.
No one questioned whether she was black, said David Smedley, an associate professor of sculpture and coordinator of Howard’s sculpture program, who was her thesis adviser at the university. “She was a blue-eyed blond woman.”
In fact, the Smoking Gun reported reported Monday afternoon that Dolezal sued Howard University in 2002 for discriminating against her for being white. She claimed retaliation based on her race, gender, pregnancy and family responsibilities, saying she had been denied teaching positions and scholarship aid. She also complained that some of her artwork had been removed from an exhibition because black students were being favored. A judge, and subsequently an appeals court, found no basis for her claims.
[…]
