Catholic school apologizes for sharing old photo of student in KKK outfit in Michigan

A Catholic high school in Michigan has apologized after it shared a “throwback Thursday” photo on social media of a student wearing a Ku Klux Klan outfit.

The photo, which has since been deleted from the school’s Facebook and Instagram pages, came from the 1979 Lansing Catholic High School yearbook, the school said. It features a student wearing a white hood and robe with a cross, with several other students appearing to give a Nazi salute

The social media manager for the school has been placed on administrative leave, and the incident is under investigation, school president Dominic Iocco said on Facebook.

“I am very angry and very sorry that this ever happened,” he said. “It was wrong, offensive, and does not, in any way, reflect who we are as a school community.”

Iocco initially said the picture was from a theatrical production set in ancient Rome, but he clarified later in a statement that it was from an “Animal House”-style Halloween assembly. The popular 1978 film features the antics of members of a college fraternity.

The KKK is known as the “most infamous of American hate groups,” according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, and is rooted in discrimination against several groups, including Catholics.

Numerous people shared Lansing Catholic High School’s photo, even after it was deleted from the school’s social media.

“I graduated from Catholic central in ‘71, and to hear that this was posted, it’s rather sad,” Randy Watkins, vice president of the Lansing NAACP, told the Lansing State Journal. “I’m disappointed, angered that whoever is watching these pages (let that image) even be out there for 30 seconds.”

“If you post a photo of someone in a hood with that logo, there are people saluting, it just looks unacceptable honestly,” 2014 graduate Marilyn Werner told WLNS. “It was just really concerning to see that on the page of my former school.”

Iocco and the school’s board of trustees said in an additional statement Thursday night that they condemn the KKK outfit was ever permitted in the school.

“We apologize that this was allowed within our walls as a costume, and even worse allowed in a yearbook representing our school,” the statement said. “We also apologize for the emotions and pain that this has stirred up within our community by being posted to our Facebook page.”

The school also met controversy in 2017 when it benched football players who knelt during the national anthem before games, according to WILX.

One of the players, who is Black, said the benching felt “like oppression,” the Lansing State Journal reported.

Three of the students were later guests of former Democratic presidential nominee Beto O’Rourke before a 2019 debate, WZZM reported.

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