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USA Today editor apologizes for approving ‘racist’ yearbook photo

USA Today conducted a nationwide review of college yearbooks following the Gov. Ralph Northam blackface scandal and discovered more than 200 examples of “offensive or racist” material — including a “hurtful” blackface photo that was published by the newspaper’s own editor in chief.

“I became part of our story on racist images in college yearbooks,” wrote USA Today Editor Nicole Carroll in an op-ed Wednesday night. “I’m here to own my mistake and apologize.”

While working for Arizona State University’s school newspaper, Carroll had signed off on a 1989 yearbook photo showing two people at a fraternity Halloween party dressed up as boxer Mike Tyson and actress Robin Givens. The students were apparently white and “in black makeup.”

“It is horrible, and of course the photo should not have been published,” Carroll said. “I am sorry for the hurt I caused back then and the hurt it will cause today.”

Carroll, who was named editor in chief of USA Today last March, claimed she “had no memory” of the yearbook picture when told of its existence.

“I was shocked,” she said. “Clearly the 21-year-old me who oversaw the book and that page didn’t understand how offensive the photo was. I wish I had. Today’s 51-year-old me of course understands and is crushed by this mistake.”

More than 70 reporters worked on USA Today’s nationwide yearbook review after it was launched in early February. They scoured through 900 annuals from 120 different schools across the country, according to the paper.

Examples of “offensive or racist material” were found at colleges in at least 25 states — from “large public universities in the South” to “Ivy League schools in the Northeast” and even “liberal arts boutiques and Division I powerhouses,” the paper said.

One yearbook description from Cornell University, which was featured in its 1980 yearbook, describes three fraternity members as “Ku,” “Klux” and “Klan.”

A photo from the University of Virginia yearbook for 1971 shows frat members in dark hoods and robes staring at a lynched mannequin in blackface. Another from the 1981 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign annual shows a black man casually drinking beer next to three classmates who are in full KKK regalia.

“I’m sure at the time they probably thought that was funny,” explained Jeffrey Barkstall, one of the few black students who attended UIUC when the yearbook was published, according to USA Today.

“Who knows,” he said. “There may be senators under those masks.”

Several politicians and public figures have come forward in recent weeks and admitted to wearing blackface following Northam’s yearbook scandal. A picture that was featured on Northam’s yearbook page showed a white man wearing dark face paint and another in KKK regalia. He has denied being in the photo but has confessed to wearing blackface once for a Michael Jackson costume.

“I had the shoes, I had a glove, and I used just a little bit of shoe polish to put under my — or on my — cheeks,” he said at a Feb. 2 presser. “And the reason I used a very little bit is because, I don’t know if anybody’s ever tried that, but you cannot get shoe polish off.”

A recent Pew Research study showed that roughly one in three Americans believe it’s “always or sometimes” acceptable to wear blackface — as long as it’s part of a Halloween costume.