Another basketball hate incident turns out to be a hoax:

Purdue University forward Trey Kaufman-Renn had said he was told after an away game against the University of Illinois in March that his 13-year-old brother was subjected to “some racist comments … as well as my family being cussed out, things like that.”

As always with such incidents, they made a federal case out of it.

The allegations at the time prompted national headlines and a probe by the university.

However campus documents regarding the investigation into the incident by University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign exclusively obtained by The Fix in late August state that [neither] officials nor police could ascertain that anything besides “general obnoxiousness” was witnessed regarding the incident.

An email was sent to Claire Brooks, director of the Equal Employment Opportunity Division in the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion.

“No one heard any racial remarks during the game,” the email states. “It was only after the game that [omitted name] mentioned the racial harassment.” Although the name is redacted, it most likely refers to Kaufman-Renn.

On the rare occasions that “hate” incidents against privileged minorities are not fabricated from whole cloth, they can often be dismissed as politically motivated attempts to exploit general obnoxiousness.

On a tip from Matt L.