Ole Miss chancellor Glenn F. Boyce has condemned a visit by pardoned January 6 rioter Jake Lang, who came to Oxford this week to defend the white students caught on camera making monkey noises outside a Black student’s apartment. At the same time, a fundraiser Lang promoted for one of those students has passed $100,000.
In a letter to the university community on Thursday, Boyce addressed “an unaffiliated individual” who came to campus “with the sole purpose to disrupt our university community with racist and detestable behavior.” He did not name Lang, but the description matches what Lang posted from Oxford on Nov. 11.
“As a public institution, we are committed to supporting First Amendment rights. At the same time, we vehemently denounce this person’s behavior, which does not align with our campus values,” Boyce wrote. He called the visit “an obvious attempt to antagonize and offend our students” and said he was proud of how students responded.
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Lang posted two videos from that day. In the first, he stands in a campus dining area holding a sign that reads “3 Ole Miss girls = patriots” and repeats that the women “did nothing wrong” while students mostly ignore him. In the second, he wears a gorilla mask, beats his chest and shouts “chimping out!” outside an apartment that appears to be where the three Black students live, copying the conduct in the original video. He followed up on X with a post saying the women did “NOTHING WRONG,” along with a slur aimed at one of the students and her Ring camera.
Lang was arrested days after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and indicted on 11 counts, including assaulting police with a baseball bat. He spent about four years in jail awaiting trial before Trump pardoned him on his first day back in office in January 2025. Since then he has been arrested in Minneapolis and in Frisco, Texas, and in March federal prosecutors charged him with threatening an officer he faced at the Capitol. Earlier this year he protested outside the BET Awards with a group holding signs attacking Black parents.
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The Ole Miss chancellor’s letter also gave the first official update on the original Nov. 6 incident. Boyce said staff responded the night they learned of it, met with the students and their families, and that “the university investigation is moving forward.” Two offices are handling it: the Office of Conflict Resolution and Student Conduct and the Office of Equal Opportunity and Regulatory Compliance. Boyce said federal privacy laws limit what the school can share about any student or any discipline. Ole Miss has not said whether Lang will face consequences for coming onto campus or showing up outside the students’ home.
The fundraiser is called “Stand with Lauren.” It was launched on GiveSendGo, a crowdfunding site, by Tom Hennessey, who creates campaigns for people facing backlash over racist or xenophobic comments. It backs the second woman in the video, whom the Clarion Ledger identifies as Lauren Mayfield. The campaign started with a $20,000 goal and had $19,309 by Wednesday. Hennessey has raised the goal twice since then. As of Saturday the campaign had brought in $108,801 toward a new $125,000 target. According to Primetimer, Lang promoted the fundraiser in his campus video.
Hennessey says the money is meant to cover lost income so Mayfield does not have to “bend the knee.” He says he will shut the campaign down if she apologizes or disavows his support. There is no public confirmation that Mayfield authorized the fundraiser or will receive the money, and she has not commented.
The three roommates say that refusal started at their door. Freshmen Jakiyra Metcalf, Victoria Johnson and Kaiyden Caldwell told CBS Mornings they went outside and confronted the women after seeing the footage. The first woman apologized. The second kept going.
“She continued to make the gestures after the girl was apologizing,” Johnson said. “It was like a slap in the face.”
The woman who apologized, 18-year-old freshman Alaina Kunes, released a statement saying she had never met the roommates and did not know their race. She has since withdrawn from the university. Caldwell said the apology “still doesn’t change what happened on that Friday.”
Kunes’s family says they have also been threatened. TMZ obtained a voicemail left for her father in which the caller, who claimed to be an Ole Miss student, threatened to hang her if she returned to campus. A family spokesperson said they have faced intense harassment and threats of violence all week.
The third woman in the video, who did not make any gestures, has not been publicly confirmed. Vice Chancellor Shawnboda Mead said one of the three students named online was misidentified, and the Alpha Phi chapter said none of the women are members. Metcalf’s original 13-second clip has now passed 13 million views.
This is the second time in two years Ole Miss has investigated a student over monkey noises aimed at a Black woman. In May 2024, a white student was filmed making the same noises and gestures at a Black graduate student during a pro-Palestinian protest on campus, and his fraternity removed him. Black residents make up nearly 40 percent of Mississippi’s population, but only about 11 percent of Ole Miss students.
