Racial Assault Hoax

Jones made national headlines for presiding over a racial hoax that was reported as a race-motivated assault against three African-American women on a campus bus.^[10] Based upon a police report at the time, Jones firmly declared in a public announcement that “early this morning, three of our students were harassed and assaulted while riding a bus in Albany. I am deeply concerned, saddened and angry about this incident. There is no place in the UAlbany community for violence, no place for racial intolerance and no place for gender violence.”.^[11] Later video evidence showed that the trio was not assaulted and were instead aggressors in the incident.^[12][13][14] Students and observers criticized Jones as rushing to judgement ^[12] while Jones refused to apologize stating that he made his remark based upon the police report at that time.^[14]