The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina, has suspended a group of students seen wearing white hoods in a Christmas sketch,
WCSC reports.
In screenshots posted to social media, a group of seven cadets said to be freshmen are seen behind another student said to be an upperclassman. The freshman are wearing all-white clothing with pillowcases over their heads with eye holes cut out, evoking the hoods worn by the Ku Klux Klan.
"A social media posting, which I find offensive and disturbing, was brought to my attention this morning. It shows an upper class cadet in front of seven cadets with pillowcases over their heads," Citadel President Lt. Gen. John Rosa said in a statement. "Preliminary reports are cadets were singing Christmas carols as part of a 'Ghosts of Christmas Past' skit. These images are not consistent with our core values of honor, duty and respect."
The still shots were taken from a Snapchat post and posted to Facebook, WCSC reports.
University spokesman Brett Ashworth said "at this point, there is no evidence that this was hazing." He said the college is looking into both who took the photograph and how it came to be posted on social media sites.
He added cadets are now taking final exams and the investigation will likely not be completed until after the first of the year. The college's military Corps of Cadets has 2,300 students.
Under the school's system, freshmen receive rigorous military training administered by upper-class cadets.
Hazing has from time to time put the college in the limelight and novelist Pat Conroy wrote about it in his book "The Lords of Discipline" – a fictional account based on his Citadel experiences in the 1960s.
In 1986, five white cadets entered the room of a black cadet dressed in sheets and towels and left a charred paper cross. The black cadet left the college and later about 200 people, many of them black, marched in protest.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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