A state semifinal hockey game in North Dakota has managed to make national news because three unidentified students decided it would be a good idea to attend the game dressed in what appeared to be Ku Klux Klan-style garb.
The game between Red River High School of Grand Forks and Davies High School of Fargo was played at the Ralph Engelstad Arena on the campus of the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks.
The three fans were sitting in the Red River High School student section. Shane Schuster, 19, photographed the students and uploaded the image on Twitter, according to the Daily Mail.
Shuster, who was sitting in another section of the stadium, was astounded when he spotted the KKK-clad students, reports Fox News.
“I thought, ‘Are those KKK hoods?’ I couldn’t believe it,” Schuster said. “I was shocked.”
“I guess the red river highschoolers are racist?” he tweeted, according to ABC News.
In the photo, everyone in the Red River Roughriders section is dressed almost entirely in white as part of a designed “whiteout” color scheme for fans.
The principal of Red River High, Kristopher Arason, said that an investigation revealed that the students had put on the white robes and white, pointy hoods for about a minute after the Red River hockey team scored its first goal. They removed the KKK regalia because other students in the section let them know it was offensive.
“We, as a school, are extremely disappointed with the behavior of these three students,” Arason said in a statement to Fox News. “This behavior is not a representation of our school or student body.”
Arason added that the students’ parents had been notified and said that “appropriate action is being taken.” However, he did not specify if that included disciplinary action.
As Fox News observes, Red River High’s opponent in the game — Davies High School — is named after Ronald Davies, the federal judge who ordered the desegregation of the previously all-white Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas in 1957. Davies was an attorney in Grand Forks for many years.
Red River won the game 2-0. The Roughriders then mauled Grafton-Park River 7-1 to win the state title, according to the Dickinson Press.
