University of North Dakota Investigates 2 Racially Charged Snapchats

The University of North Dakota is investigating two racially charged photographs of students that surfaced within a 48-hour period last week.

Both photos were posted to Snapchat: one pictured four people in blackface, captioned “Black lives matter,” and a second showed three students smiling in a dorm room, captioned “locked the black b-tch out.” The people in the photographs appear to be white, and a UND spokesperson confirmed to the Star Tribune that the people pictured were students at the school.

“I am appalled that within 48 hours two photos with racially charged messages have been posted on social media and associated with the UND campus community,” UND President Mark Kennedy wrote in a statement. “It is abundantly clear that we have much work to do at the University of North Dakota in educating our students, and the entire University community on issues related to diversity, inclusion, and respect for others.”

A student had posted the second photo on Facebook and wrote that her friend, a black woman, had left her phone in her dorm room when the three smiling students published the captioned photo to her Snapchat story.

The University has about 15,000 students; the student body is 79% white and 2.5% black, according to UND data.

[The Washington Post]

 

Write to Julia Zorthian at julia.zorthian@time.com.