Ku Klux Klan Garb at North Dakota High School Hockey Game Leads to Discipline of Students (Photo)

by NESN Staff on Mon, Feb 25, 2013 at 5:10PM

We’re going to skip all the jabber about how incredibly inappropriate this is and just suggest that Grand Forks Red River High School invest a little more in history education.

The high school is coming under fire this week after three of its freshmen wore Ku Klux Klan hoods during the school’s North Dakota semifinal hockey game against Fargo Davies High. While the students were quickly reprimanded, both by those in attendance, who got them to take the hoods off, and by the school, which has since punished them, it wasn’t fast enough to stop a photo from being taken, leaving the questionable moment to live on.

The students reportedly wore the hoods because the school was having a “whiteout” in the stands, where fans dress all in white. But the historical overtones of the move — and the unique history of the school against whom Red River High was playing — quickly made the situation much worse.

Fargo Davies High is named after Ronald Davies, a former U.S. District judge in Fargo who played a key role in the desegregation of schools in Little Rock, Ark., in 1957. Davies was the judge who intervened and made the governor of Arkansas back off when he tried to keep the schools from being integrated, according to the Grand Forks Herald.

Chances are that the students didn’t know the full implications of what they were doing, but the school has been swift to discipline them.

“We, as a school, are extremely disappointed with the behavior of these three students,” Principal Kris Arason said in a statement, according to the Grand Forks Herald. “This behavior is not a representation of our school or student body.”

He said “appropriate actions are being taken.”

The community, meanwhile, has been vocal about the situation, with many people making a point to say that the action does not reflect the student body. Fellow students pressured the freshmen and had them take the hoods off within “30 seconds” of putting them on, according to reports. The Fargo Davies High student who took the photo and put it on Twitter, however, said the students wore the garb for several minutes.

Check out the controversial photo below.

I guess the red river highschoolers are racist? @CaitlinKnoell @Thor_Skoe @HunterHalonen @RossLien #wtf http://t.co/lyox5E3UZm
—
Shane Schuster (@ShaneSchuster) February 23, 2013

Photo of the Day

What a terrified young man.

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