NEWBERG, Ore. (AP) -- Officials of a Christian university say a life-size cardboard effigy of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama was hung from a campus tree, suspended from a branch with fishing line around the neck.

George Fox University President Robin Baker says a custodian discovered the effigy early Tuesday and removed it. University administrators said Wednesday they do not know who hung it.

Taped to the cardboard cutout of the black senator from Illinois was a message targeting participants in Act Six, a scholarship program that looks to increase the number of minority and low-income students.

The message read, "Act Six reject."

The school has 17 students enrolled in the Act Six program, according to a release. It said most are members of minority groups. Students in the program receive full scholarships, according to school officials, and they are selected based on their leadership potential.

Few people saw the effigy or were aware of it, spokesman Rob Felton said Wednesday.

The likeness was commercially produced rather than homemade, he said. He said local police were notified, and they will decide whether the act was a crime.

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Felton said he had been at the school since he enrolled two decades ago, and "I've never experienced or heard of any type of overt racial act."

Baker said in a statement that he met with the students in the Act Six program late Tuesday and planned to address the school's undergraduate student body Wednesday morning at the school's regular chapel service.

The school promotes diversity and is meant to reflect the "character of God," Baker said. "We will not tolerate such displays and condemn it in the strongest terms," he said.

George Fox University was founded in 1891 by Quaker pioneers. Its campus is in Newberg in the Willamette Valley south of Portland. About 1,800 students are enrolled. The school said Wednesday that nearly a quarter of first-year undergraduate students at the school are members of minority groups.

The university has not released any photos of the Obama cut-out. If you took a photo and would like to share it, click here to submit it to kgw.com.