A photo posted on Snapchat shows a “sculpture of a white body” hanging from a noose on a tree at UNC Charlotte, the news editor of the student-run Niner Times campus newspaper told The Charlotte Observer in an email reply Tuesday night.

“The photo was taken from Snapchat and the photographer is unknown,” news editor Megan Bird told the Observer in the email.

In an article posted on NinerTimes.com Tuesday, Bird wrote that “the display is clearly intended to depict a lynching, but the culprit and the intention behind the portrayal are unknown. The hanging object has since been removed.”

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The article reported that Christine Reed Davis, UNCC’s associate vice chancellor for student affairs and dean of students, emailed student leaders to say she understood “the display is a student of color’s final art project.”

“However, it’s not clear that the student had permission to display it outside of the building,” the Niner Times reported.

In an email to the UNCC community Tuesday, the school said “university officials were notified today of what appeared to be noosed figures hanging from a tree outside of the Rowe Arts Building. After investigation by the Department of Police and Public Safety, it was determined to be an art project submitted by a student of color for an end-of-semester assignment.

“At this time, there is no evidence to suggest the project was motivated by racial bias,” UNCC said in the email, a copy of which the Observer obtained after requesting it from the university. “It was not a response to the Student Government Association’s Silent Sam letter, as has been reported in some media outlets.

“The representation of a figure being lynched is hurtful, threatening, and offensive,” the university said in its email. “The project was immediately removed.”

On Monday, UNCC’s Student Government Association issued a statement “imploring” UNC’s Board of Governors “not to reinstall (the Confederate statue) ‘Silent Sam’ on the campus of North Carolina’s flagship university,” according to a copy of the statement retweeted by UNCC’s SGA.