The University of Chicago has become the latest institution to discover that a race-based incident was actually a hoax.

As the University of Chicago reels from a controversy over racist Halloween costumes and cultural sensitivity on campus, new information has come to light, further complicating an already tense relationship between students and the administration.

On Monday, the university said that a supposed Facebook hacking incident related to the controversy was actually a hoax. “The owner of the Facebook account claimed responsibility for the posting,” read a statement published Monday on the school’s official website.

The university had partnered with federal authorities to investigate a threatening Facebook post, which appeared last week on a student’s account and was initially thought to be the work of a hacker. The posting appeared to threaten Vincente Perez — a student activist instrumental in bringing recent attention to what some call the school’s “culture of intolerance” — and included explicit language and references to rape. “I am personally targeted for fighting for racial justice on campus,” Perez wrote on Twitter of the threatening Facebook post soon after it appeared.

Debunking the would-be hacking incident, the university wrote the following on its website: “There are still many facts to be learned. But it became clear that nobody broke into the Facebook account in question, and that in fact the posting was not the anonymous threat against a student that it first appeared to be.”

Even before the hoax was exposed, students were skeptical that activists and the administration could successfully tackle the broader campus issues of race and culture. That skepticism remains.

Alex, a third-year film major at the university who did not wish to be identified by her full name, said she believes the Facebook incident hurt the credibility of recent protests held on campus in response to the controversy. But she is hopeful the school will take action, given the many students and alumni of color who have come forward to share experiences of racial intolerance at the school.