On the morning of April 27, 1954, University of Michigan students reported numerous sightings of a unicorn in the central courtyard of the Law Quad. It was shortly before the Crease Ball, the law students’ annual dance. Ted Swift, an audacious second-year student, was in charge of increasing attendance. Fortuitously, just as the movie “The Unicorn in the Garden” was playing in the Michigan Theater, many students, including a Michigan Daily reporter and photographer, saw the animal with a curious cone-shaped straw hat — though an investigation to find the perpetrator came up empty-handed. In response to the next day’s Daily article, Swift, who never took credit for the prank, criticized the paper for glorifying a “misguided and juvenile law student.” The dean of the Law School praised Swift for his mature judgment.
— Adapted from “When animals went to school” by James Tobin, Michigan Today
