A US University professor accused of lying about her race for years has admitted she lied about being black and later resigned her job at the George Washington University after she was suspended for one semester.

Jessica Krug, 38, wrote on the blog website Medium that her various identities have been built on a “toxic soil of lies” and she is in fact a white Jewish woman from Kansas City. “I have built my life on a violent anti-Black lie, and I have lied in every breath I have taken… I am not a culture vulture. I am a culture leech.”  

The prominent activist and professor of African American history whose colleagues said they were “shocked and appalled” by her admission had falsely assumed a North African Black identity, then a US rooted Black woman and at other times a Caribbean rooted Bronx Black identity.

George Washington University has now cancelled the classes set to be taught by Jessica Krug. In a statement released on Friday night, the University provost, Brian Blake, and dean, Paul Wahlbeck, wrote: “Dr Krug will not be teaching her classes this semester. We are working on developing a number of options for students in those classes, which will be communicated to affected students as soon as possible.”

Krug made headlines she posted a blog on Medium that claimed she was in fact white despite having lived most of her adult life “under various assumed identities within a Blackness that I had no right to claim.

Krug blamed “unaddressed mental health demons” dating back to childhood and said she frequently thought of confessing the deception, “but my cowardice was always more powerful than my ethics”.