(CNN) A university gift shop display hung ornaments of African American history-makers from the branches of fake trees, days before the start of Black History Month. Nobody thought anything of it until a black graduate student pointed out that it looked like they'd been lynched.

The backlash from black students at Michigan State University was swift. Many said it's only the latest example of the racial bias they encounter on the campus, where just under 7% of the student body is black.

Krystal Rose Davis-Dunn, a graduate student at Michigan State, first spotted the display last week in the gift shop at the university's performing arts center where she'd attended a jazz concert.

She told CNN she immediately noticed ornaments of black figures like Michelle Obama, Harriet Tubman and Prince, among others, hung from the branches of several small fake trees. Seeing the figures positioned in that way evoked a visceral response in her, Davis-Dunn said.

She checked with her friends to make sure she wasn't "hypersensitive," she said, but it enraged them, too.