A high school girls’ basketball team in Iowa faced harsh backlash after creating a poster many deemed as offensive and racist toward Native Americans.

The team from Clarke High School, which uses “Indians” as the school’s mascot, released a poster promoting their upcoming season with team members wearing traditional headdresses and face paint. On the poster, the girls are also depicted doing a "tribal dance" in front of a totem pole that has a basketball hoop fixed at the top.

This poster for a girls' basketball team in Iowa came under fire for its disrespectul use of Native Amerinan culture. Poster taken from the Facebook page of KCCI's Andy Garman, which has since been removed. More

The poster is an obvious case of cultural appropriation and has offended many in that community.

The Iowa Commission on Native American Affairs told local news station KCCI that the poster was “disrespectful.”

“The poster misused symbols representing a Native culture and spirituality in a disrespectful way. This is a young team that probably did not intentionally mean to be disrespectful; they may not realize that portraying a racial minority group in a stereotypical manner is not appropriate. We hope that the school and other individuals recognize that this poster reinforces and perpetuates offensive imagery and stereotypes of our culture."

The poster — and the idea for it — came from a local photographer Ben Shirk, who owns the studio Shirk Photography. He told Deadspin last week that there was “no disrespect intended” by the poster, but has since released an apology on the studio’s Facebook page:

“We recently created a Native American themed poster for the Clarke HS Indians – using head dresses and a totem pole. Thank you to all that have let us know that it was offensive to them. At no point would we have created a poster to intentionally disrespect or offend anyone. The intention of each and every one of our images is to encourage the subjects to feel good about themselves and to inspire others through art. It was a mistake on our part to create a poster that offends other cultural practices, their dress and in general. We respectfully removed the image from our site yesterday. We are very sorry.”

KCCI reported the poster has yet to be distributed and is being reviewed.