Priest's Robes Cause Campus KKK Scare

The regional Dominican Friars office tweeted a handy guide to telling its members apart from boxers, Halloween ghosts, and KKK members after a campus scare in Indiana last week. The Tab reports that there was a brief panic at the Bloomington campus of the University of Indiana when somebody tweeted that there was "someone walking around in KKK gear with a whip." Students circulated warnings to stay inside before it emerged that the Klansman, who was spotted buying frozen yogurt after his campus visit, was actually Father Jude McPeak, a Dominican monk, and the "whip" was either a belt or a rosary.

McPeak says he didn't learn about the scare until later on and he now wants to reach out to the community to teach them more about the Dominican order, which is more than 600 years older than the KKK. "I've learned early on to kind of ignore things when I'm out, so when I was at Red Mango getting yogurt, I had no idea what was going on around the campus," he tells the Denver Post. Fellow Dominican Luke Barder says they try to keep a sense of humor when confusion arises. Once, " somebody started yelling at me assuming I was in the Klan," he says. "I just said, 'no, I'm not that. They probably hate me just as much as you.' It's kind of a running joke." (A Philadelphia-area school district has apologized for a KKK class skit.)