Kendrick Alridge saw that the Rice Young Democrats were going to debate the Rice Conservative Forum, so he signed up to be on the lefties' team.

One problem: He wasn't a Rice student. Or, to be more exact in terms of what he was telling other students, he wasn't a Rice student for this semester only before returning to his studies at Harvard.

The campus police are investigating the case, the Rice Thresher reports.

Alridge, the paper says, has been passing himself off as a Rice student off and on since at least 2007.

"There was nothing about him that made me question him," a Young Democrat told the Thresher. "He is definitely within the standard deviation of a Rice Student."

This isn't the first time Rice has attracted an unlikely impostor. Back in 2002 we wrote about Rodrigo Fernando Montano, a man who spent a month eating in Rice's dining halls, going to classes and even running with the track team.

At least he didn't try to debate the Conservative Forum.