"Following the student's admission Friday that it was a hoax, Clyde
Barrow, chairman of the policy studies department, said UMass should
punish the student and faculty members, in particular two history
professors who repeated the unsubstantiated assertion of the history
student to a New Bedford Standard-Times reporter.
"The story, first reported by the newspaper on Dec. 17, was picked up by
other news outlets, triggered screeds on left-wing and right-wing blogs,
spurred a flurry of concerned e-mails among UMass faculty, and appeared
in a Globe op-ed piece written by Senator Edward M. Kennedy."