‘Literally, in the blink of an eye … you can lose everything,’ Iowa student says

Iowa student Holden Hughes still feels the negative effects of a viral post from five years ago in which he was accused of racism for wearing a dark-colored acne mask.

In a new interview with The Free Press, the Drake University graduate student said he was only 14 when the photo was taken and 17 when it went viral.

“I am not ashamed of anything that happened,” Holden said. “I have made a lot of mistakes in my life. I make them every single day, but doing an acne face mask in eighth grade was not one of them.”

Now 22, he said the results of the false racism accusations included expulsion from his Catholic high school, lost football scholarship opportunities, a move to a different state – and, more recently, dating troubles.

Being labeled a racist “changed the whole entire trajectory of my life, separated our family, changed me as a person, and is something that not only sticks with me now, but will stick with me forever,” he said.

“Literally, in the blink of an eye, in a matter of 24 hours, you can lose everything,” Hughes told The Free Press.

The situation erupted in June of 2020 when Hughes and his family were living in California. One morning, as the death of George Floyd and Black Lives Matter protests dominated the news, Hughes said he woke up to find out that an old photo of him and a few friends had gone viral.

The photo, he said, showed the friends wearing dark green acne masks. However, some people misinterpreted it as “blackface,” according to the report. Commenters described the boys as “Hitler’s Kids” and their actions a “hate crime” and “racism.”

Less than a week later, he said he and another boy in the photo were expelled from their private Catholic school, Saint Francis High School.

Between that and the threats of violence, Hughes said his parents soon decided to move him to another state.

The boys and their families eventually sued the school, The Free Press reports:

At last, in May 2024, Hughes and his fellow plaintiff won a major ruling in California’s courts. Though the jury rejected the defamation claims, it did find that the school had not granted the boys their right to a “fair procedure.” In the end, both boys were awarded a total of $1 million and an additional $70,000 each for tuition reimbursement. A spokesperson from Saint Francis told [The Free Press] that the school “respectfully disagreed with the jury’s finding” that the disciplinary process had been unfair.

“We stand by the thoughtful and values-based decisions made at the time,” the spokesperson said.

For Hughes, there are still lasting effects of the five-year-old post, according to the report:

Last year, shortly after the lawsuit was settled, he started dating a girl he liked. On their second date, he told her about his past and after that, he said, she stopped responding to his texts. He told me that it’s hard to accept that “something completely out of my control kind of inhibits that relationship from going farther.” But he can’t change the past.

Hughes is not alone. The College Fix has reported about other students and professors who have been falsely accused of racism over the past decade, including a Colorado State University fraternity banner that was labeled “blackface” but actually was the result of ink bleeding.

The Fix reported about 21 hate crime hoaxes in 2024 alone.

As for Hughes, he told the news outlet that his Christian faith has sustained him through the most difficult times.

“I know who I am. I know my values. I know the real story,” he said.

MORE: Conservative white professor falsely accused of harassing black student

IMAGE CAPTION AND CREDIT: A black mask is depicted on a white background; VectorDOTdesign/Shutterstock

Read More

Like The College Fix on Facebook / Follow us on Twitter