A group of white students are accused of using taunts, slurs and Confederate flag references to harass teenagers from Uplift Hampton on campus tour Tuesday

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Texas A&M has launched an investigation after complaints that black high school students were racially abused on a visit to the college campus on Tuesday.

About 60 juniors from a public charter school in south Dallas that mainly caters to low-income, minority students were on a tour when they were approached by about a dozen white students.

“The initial confrontation began when a white female student approached two female African American Uplift Hampton students to ask their opinion of her earrings, which were Confederate flag replicas,” said Royce West, a Texas senator from Dallas who was informed of the incident by the chancellor of A&M.

“This was exacerbated by a group of white male and female students, who within earshot of the first event, told a larger group of the high school visitors, part of the Road to College at Uplift Education Program, to ‘Go back where you came from’.

“They continued their taunts by using the most well-known racial slur that’s directed toward African Americans and also made other references to the Confederate flag.”

According to West, officials reported the incident but a university representative initially said the college students were expressing their first amendment right to free speech. Ultimately, campus police were dispatched.

Yasmin Bhatia, chief executive of Uplift, said in a statement she was “proud of our scholars for the grace and composure with which they responded to the college students who chose to engage in a disrespectful and unacceptable manner”.

An Uplift spokeswoman, Sara Ortega, corroborated West’s account. She said another Dallas-area school in the Uplift network visited the campus on Thursday without incident, and that she was unaware of similar problems in the roughly seven years that Uplift schools have been touring A&M.

On Wednesday, Uplift Hampton held an assembly to discuss issues of race and diversity.

In a memorandum obtained by the Texas Tribune, Michael Young, the university’s president, said he was “outraged and tremendously disappointed” by the incident, which he said “will be investigated to the fullest extent possible and appropriate action will be taken”.

A Hampton student, TerQuarie Wilson, told CBS local news some students were initially friendly, but the mood changed when they noticed one of the juniors carrying a bag with a University of Texas logo. The two institutions have traditionally had a fierce rivalry, centred around football.

“They didn’t like his bag, so they screamed, ‘Go back to where you came from.’ And one of my peers turned around and said, ‘You do realize we’re all black or African American, right?’” he said.

Only 4% of A&M’s undergraduates at its main College Station location are black while 64% are white, according to university statistics.

“Although progress has been slow, particularly when it comes to African American students,” West said, “Texas A&M has made the effort to recruit minority students from urban schools. It has established outreach centers in Dallas and other cities and made scholarship monies available.

“But actions such as what took place Tuesday can undo whatever good has been done. The students responsible for these reprehensible actions should be strongly disciplined, if not expelled.”

Last year a fraternity chapter at the University of Oklahoma was closed and two students expelled after a video emerged of students chanting racial slurs, while the University of Missouri’s president and chancellor resigned after criticism of their handling of racist incidents.