Jack Herrera

Stanford University

Corrections and clarifications: An earlier version of the story below misidentified the lecture at which Ryan took the selfie.

Like so many other misadventures, House Speaker Paul Ryan’s latest viral kerfuffle began with a selfie stick.

While giving a speech to congressional interns earlier this week, Ryan spun around and snapped a selfie with the audience. On Saturday, the photo was posted on the Speaker’s official Instagram account with the caption: “I think this sets a record for the most number of #CapitolHill interns in a single selfie. #SpeakerSelfie.”

Ryan’s picture has since gone viral — but not because of the number of interns featured in it. Rather, many have criticized the photo for a different, conspicuous detail: almost everyone in the shot is white.

As Twitter users lambasted the lack of diversity in the speaker's selfie, some began tweeting with the hashtag #GOPSoWhite — a reference to the #OscarsSoWhite campaign that criticized the dearth of diversity among Academy Award nominees.

According to RJ Khalaf, an intern for Congressman André Carson (D-Ind.), Ryan's speech had a limited capacity, so interns were randomly selected to attend in a lottery. The interns in the picture work for congresspeople of both parties, he says.

"I don't think this necessarily reflects poorly on Paul Ryan," says Khalaf. "Sure, it shows his privilege and inability to see the lack of diversity. However, it's a better representation of the fact that so many interns on the Hill are not people of color."

While not everyone blamed Ryan for the make-up of the audience, some on Twitter criticized the speaker for the decision to publicly post the photo.

There doesn't seem to be data available on the demographics of Capitol Hill interns, but a December 2015 report by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies found that just 7.1% of senior Senate staff were people of color. According to the Pew Research Center, non-white people hold only 17% of elected seats in the 114th Congress -- which still ranks as the most diverse Congress ever.

Perhaps the best way to summarize the studies' findings is in Twitter parlance: #CongressSoWhite.

Jack Herrera is a student at Stanford University and a USA TODAY College correspondent.

This story originally appeared on the USA TODAY College blog, a news source produced for college students by student journalists. The blog closed in September of 2017.