When a noose surfaced at the St. Louis Sheriff's Department in July 2006, the three department employees responsible for hanging the noose received slaps on the wrist. Sheriff James W. Murphy gave the three employees--two white men and one black woman--written reprimands and regarded the incident as "a practical joke." Fast-forward 14 months. When a noose surfaced at the Hempstead, N.Y., police department, local law-enforcement officials and the U.S. Department of Justice launched a full-scale investigation. The difference between the reactions to these instances: the case of the Jena 6, a schoolyard brawl that stemmed from a noose hanging from the high-school courtyard tree that fueled a national outcry against nooses.  

Since October 2006, the number of noose sightings has steadily risen to more than 40 reported incidents, according to the DiversityInc Noose Watch, the first national noose watch. Up until this year, "we might see half a dozen [noose] cases a year," says Mark Potok, director of the Intelligence Project for the South Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which monitors hate crimes. "There is no doubt in my mind that there has been a major outbreak of noose incidents blossoming because of Jena."

So is it a racist-backlash reaction to the Jena 6 case? Is it copycats? Is it, as some experts say, because the economy is teetering and that causes people to look for scapegoats?

"There has always been an increase in this kind of hatred during times of an economic downturn," says Dr. Cleveland Sellers, historian and director of African-American studies at The University of South Carolina. "Times are tough, this is a tight economy, there is a high unemployment rate, and jobs for lower-income people are relocating out of the country; the conditions are there for there to be an increase in these types of incidents."

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the number of hate groups in the United States has jumped 40 percent over the last six years, growing from 602 in 2000 to 844 in 2006. In 2006, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reported 6,000 racial-harassment cases and has filed more than 25 racial-harassment lawsuits in the workplace involving nooses since 2001. The latest settlement, for $290,000, came Thursday: Helmerich & Payne International Drilling Co. (H & P) on behalf of African American men who were subjected to a racially hostile work environment on an oil rig, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

"These noose incidents, as frightening as they are, represent a larger phenomenon. It is clear that we are seeing a major white backlash against the way the events of Jena have been portrayed," says Potok, who agrees that there are some economic factors affecting the racial climate.

Other policy experts are not as positive that the economy is the reason.

"Most of these things that have happened subsequent to Jena are copycat actions. It wouldn't surprise me if there was some student that the professor [at Columbia] had in a class who didn't like her and saw this as an opportunity to do something that is a payback," says Dr. David Bositis, senior research associate for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.

Last week, civil-rights leaders lobbied Congress to consider adding noose incidents to the hate-crimes bill, announced plans to march on the U.S Justice Department in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 16, and called for a "financial blackout" on Nov. 2.

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