A student organisation in Alabama has issued an apology after its members produced a T-shirt that showed a black person eating watermelon - an image widely considered an offensive racial stereotype.
The shirts, which also showed other images from the state, were produced by the Alpha Delta Pi student soroity. The shirts are now to be be burned following an outcry on the campus and an apology from those involved. Officials at Samford University have also apologised.
“I was repulsed by the image,” Samford University President Andy Westmoreland said in an email to students and employees. “I lack the words to express my own sense of frustration.”
The Associated Press said that officials at the university, located in the city of Birmingham, are now carrying out an investigation that could result in disciplinary action against the Alpha Delta Pi chapter, where the controversy broke as students and faculty were celebrating graduation on Friday.
University spokesman Philip Poole said the shirts were ordered as keepsakes for the sorority’s spring formal dance, but the group said it had not considered all the details of the design.
“In selecting the T-shirt, we failed to focus on the specific images in the design,” Lauren Hammond, president of the sorority’s Samford chapter, said in a statement.
Ms Hammond said sorority members have been told not to wear the shirts, which she said were being collected so they could be destroyed. Karina Shaver, a media representative for Alpha Delta Pi, said chapter members originally found the map image using a Google search.
A statement from Alpha Delta Pi's national headquarters, said: “The shirt design absolutely contradicts the values of respect and dignity that our organisation prides itself on. We do not tolerate, and would never intentionally approve any design with racial stereotypes/overtones or any other offensive images or language.”
