The New York Times

When a Black Student Plays Along With the K.K.K. Joke, What’s a College to Do?

July 16, 2019

Ronald Crutcher, president of the University of Richmond (VA), writes:  Leading a university of more than 3,000 undergraduates means routinely making difficult phone calls to parents, students and alumni. Still, I’ve rarely felt as apprehensive or conflicted as I did this past winter when I realized I had to call an African-American alumnus who appears in a grotesque yearbook photo from 1980. Drink in hand, the student, Michael Kizzie, stands smiling on a table in what appears to be a fraternity house. He has a mock noose around his neck, and he is surrounded by unidentifiable — but presumably white — classmates in Ku Klux Klan robes, as some sort of sick joke.

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