Abilene Christian University Expels Students After Racist Snapchat Featuring Blackface Exposed

ABILENE, TX — Two Abilene Christian University students have been expelled after a Snapchat video surfaced on Monday showing one of them in blackface while mimicking a black person with racist exaggerated features.

"I am a strong black woman," a female student in blackface says on the video before donning a pair of oversize plastic lips.

The video circulated on social media on Monday, causing outrage throughout the campus, the San Antonio Express-News reported. One offended student posted the video on her Twitter page to call attention to the racist display. University President Phil Schubert responded with a campus-wide email to students alerting them the people participating in the video were "no longer students at ACU."

Schubert said every person on campus needs to hold themselves to the highest standards for what is done or said.

"Our deputy anti-harassment coordinator and dean of students have met with those involved in the video, and they are no longer students at ACU," he wrote "I cannot emphasize strongly enough that this kind of hurtful behavior has no place on our campus or on behalf of ACU. Whether on social media or in person, we must hold ourselves to high standards of accountability for what we publish or say."

Schubert's letter didn't specify how may students were involved, and doesn't identify them by name. He noted the video is an "inaccurate representation" of the collective values to which the university adheres. He also urged the university's members to achieve an "inclusive, diverse campus community in which each person is respected and loved," he wrote.

"This has offended me and I am deeply sorry for how it has offended others, and left an inaccurate representation of who we are and what we believe as a Christian university," Schubert wrote in his email to the campus. "We must and can do better as we work together to build an inclusive, diverse campus community in which each person is respected and loved."

But the student who posted the video on her Twitter account says this is hardly the first display of overt racism to occur on the campus. She said racism was rampant, with "a lot of racism and hateful things said "at the university, she told the newspaper.

A private, nonprofit university affiliated with the Churches of Christ, Abilene Christian University is located just outside Fort Worth, Texas. In 2014, the university had 4,427 students enrolled, 777 of those graduate students.

>>> Photo: Snapchat Screen Shot from Daily Mail

Image: Shutterstock