Five men wore homemade KKK robes, while one man painted his body black and pretended to be a 'cotton-picking' slave
A group of six Australian university students who dressed as members of the Ku Klux Klan, and one who dressed in blackface as a ‘cotton-picking’ slave for a ‘politically incorrect’ themed party, will be subject to an investigation after the institution’s vice-chancellor condemned their decision.
The male students, who attend Charles Sturt University, shared a number of photographs of themselves on social media on Thursday night, as they attended an end-of-semester party at the Black Swan Hotel in Wagga Wagga.
One of the images posted to Instagram - and which has since been deleted - was captioned ‘very very politically incorrect’. ‘Cotton prices are unreal though so it’s a great time to be pickin,’ it said.
The photo in question showed five men in homemade Ku Klux Klan hoods and robes and another in blackface and body paint pretending to be a slave.
The Facebook description of the event said it was a two-day end-of-semester party with a ‘politically incorrect’ opening night.
‘As exams have just commenced we are already looking forward to the end of term and thus, the idea of the muddy duck ‘two dayer’ has been born,’ it said.
‘Thursday night [is a] ‘politically incorrect’ themed session kicking off at 7.30pm. So grab a kit that would legally get you in the shit and hook right in.’
Andrew Vann, the university’s vice-chancellor, said: ‘Charles Sturt University will not tolerate this offensive behaviour. It does not reflect our university values and we strongly condemn these actions. CSU is currently investigating these incidents and social media posts.’
Several of the men in the photos had deleted their Instagram and Facebook accounts as news broke of their actions.
In a now-deleted Facebook post the Black Swan Hotel said it did not know that there would be racist costumes at the party.
‘The pub was made aware of an incident unbeknownst to staff,’ it said. ‘We were unaware of this behaviour happening out the back of the pub, however we have immediately dealt with this. We have zero tolerance and do not condone this behaviour.’