Even as Chicago authorities were charging four black residents with hate crimes in connection with the beating of a white, special-needs teenager, a liberal college professor was pointing the finger in a different direction on CNN — at President-Elect Donald Trump.

Police allege that the assailants on Tuesday cut the victim’s scalp, made him drink toilet water and forced him to say, “F*** Trump,” and “F*** white people” — all while broadcasting part of it on Facebook Live.

“And in the climate that we have today and the political climate that came out of the election, the word ‘Trump’ became synonymous with hate and bigotry.”

Temple University professor Nicole Gonzalez Van Cleve, author of “Crook County: Racism and Injustice in America’s Largest Criminal Court,” depicted the alleged assault as a reaction to a climate of hatred caused by Trump during an appearance Thursday on CNN.

“One thing that’s interesting and worth talking about is that they’re not just saying, ‘white,’ they’re also saying, ‘Trump,'” she said. “And in the climate that we have today and the political climate that came out of the election, the word ‘Trump’ became synonymous with hate and bigotry.”

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Van Cleve pointed to a report produced by the Southern Poverty Law Center two weeks after the election documenting 700 incidents of racially motivated hatred supposedly inspired by Trump. Neither she nor CNN host Brooke Baldwin mentioned that some of those incidents have been proven to be hoaxes.

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“So this is one really tragic case where we are seeing a very vulnerable victim, and the concern is that we are seeing hate crimes in this post-election climate,” she said.

Shari Runner, president of the Chicago Urban League, agreed the “climate” was a big concern. She told Baldwin that it highlights the need to talk about “what all this bigotry and racism portends and what it makes people do and feel that they are allowed to do under the current climate.”