On Thursday night, a photo of six people dressed in offensive costumes was posted to Instagram. The caption was titled: "Very very politically incorrect. Cotton prices are unreal though so it's a great time to be pickin'." A second photo showed three students dressed as imprisoned Jews in blue and white-striped suits with another student dressed as a Nazi with a swastika on his arm standing behind them. That photo was also posted to Instagram with the caption: “Jesus Christ, I Jews you as my lord and saviour #csulater #hazingisfun” Another photo depicting a Nazi costume was posted online.

Charles Sturt University said it is currently investigating the incident and associated social media posts. CSU vice-chancellor Andrew Vann told Fairfax Media on Friday afternoon "it seems that some of the people in the picture were CSU students", and said they were most likely from the Wagga campus. "We're really disappointed that this kind of behaviour is associated with us," Mr Vann said. "It's not appropriate, it doesn't match the university's values. He said the university would be pursuing the issue and "taking the strongest possible action". The behaviour "very obviously breaches our code of conduct," he said. According to the university's misconduct procedures, "if there is a clear association with the university and if it's brought the university into disrepute, we can take action.

"One of our values is inclusiveness. That kind of racist imagery absolutely works against inclusiveness," he said. "My inbox has been flooded with emails from students and staff who are as appalled about this as I am," he added. But he said it shows "we have to keep working on reconciliation in Australia." The pub that hosted the event, Black Swan Hotel, posted a statement on its Facebook page on Thursday night. "We were unaware of this behaviour happening out the back of the pub, however we have immediately dealt with this," the statement, which was subsequently deleted, said. "We have zero tolerance and do not condone this sort of behaviour."