Jessica Krug’s Lies About Being Black Leaves Duke University Press Employee Embarrassed

Jessica Krug may have apologized for her pretending to be a Black woman, but some of the people she has encountered over the years are still feeling betrayed and embarrassed.

Gisela Fosado, the editorial director at Duke University Press, revealed she regrets helping the former George Washington University professor publish her book, “Fugitive Modernities: Kisama and the Politics of Freedom.”

In a blog posted to the company’s website, Fosado revealed she is “grappling with several layers of anger and hurt” after learning Krug deceived her.

“I have been sickened, angered, and saddened by the many years that she deployed gross racial stereotypes to build her fake identity, and the way that she coupled her lies with a self-righteous policing of racial politics within the Black and Latinx circles that she intruded upon,” she wrote.

Fosado revealed her first interaction with Krug was in 2017 through email, and the two were able to bond over their mispronounced names.

At the time, Krug told Fosado that her name was pronounced “Cruz,” blaming it on a “transcription mistake” when her grandparents came to the US from the Caribbean.

Reflecting on her dedication to getting Krug’s book published, Fosado admitted she was left with a sense of guilt now that she knows someone else could have benefited from the opportunity.

“There is the personal pain of having someone impersonate your own identity in the most racist way possible, through caricatures and stereotypes,” Fosado explained.

“There’s also the shameful sense that, as someone who labored to support her work as her acquisition editor, I helped publish the work of someone who, early in her career, took funding and other opportunities that were earmarked for non-white scholars.”

Fosado’s post comes after Krug quit her position at GWU. “Dr. Krug resigned her position, effective immediately,” the university announced on Wednesday.

“Her classes for this semester will be taught by other faculty members, and students in those courses will receive additional information this week.”