School administrators in Dover, N.H., are investigating a video that shows high school students in class singing a song with the refrain, "Let's kill all the blacks."

The video, which surfaced over the weekend, shows the students singing a jingle about the Ku Klux Klan to the tune of “Jingle Bells.”

The students reworded the Christmas song as part of a U.S. history class assignment, drawing widespread outrage and sparking an investigation. The minute-long video shows two students singing the song to the class, drawing laughter from their classmates.

ADVERTISEMENT

School administrators sent a letter to the community on Monday saying they are looking into the matter, calling it “an incident of extreme racial insensitivity.”

“While the incident was part of a classroom assignment dealing with the reconstruction period in American history, the impact was harmful,” Dover superintendent William Harbron said.

The incident, first reported by Foster’s Daily Democrat, took place when an 11th grade history class studying the period after the Civil War was engaged in a class activity of selecting an event from the era and creating a jingle to go with it.

The students did not know they were being recorded and are not being identified by the school district, Harbron said.

He added that he did not think the students had malicious intent and were attempting to complete the assignment.

The teacher overseeing the class assignment has been placed on paid administrative leave while the district investigates the incident, Harbron told The Hill on Tuesday.

Updated at 2:03 p.m. on Tuesday.