The Rochester Institute of Technology has apologized after racially offensive images surfaced in a student-produced yearbook from the late 1970s.
People and institutions began searching for such images after the Governor of Virginia was tripped up by a photo on his medical school yearbooks page featuring a man in blackface and another dressed in klan robes.
In a letter to the community, RIT officials say they searched online yearbooks, found and removed several offensive images, but they remain in the hard copy editions. One of the 1970s photos includes the Ku Klux Klan robes, nooses and a man in blackface makeup.
RIT President David Munson said in a statement that the photos should have been “completely unacceptable” back then. He says “today we condemn them in the strongest possible terms.”
The university is holding a special “Gray Matters” discussion on Friday afternoon as part of its continuous campus dialog on racial issues.