School weighs response to KKK stunt, mum on punishment

GRAND FORKS, N.D. - School administrators say they’re still developing ways to address the student body after three Red River High School students dressed in Ku Klux Klan garb at a hockey game Friday night.

School officials said they won’t reveal what punishment the students received because of a federal law protecting the privacy of students’ records. High school Principal Kristopher Arason said Monday that the consequences would be the same as at any school, ranging from “suspensions to (affecting) participation in extracurricular events to letters of apology.”

Three students identified as freshmen briefly donned the costumes after the start of the Roughriders’ state semifinal hockey game against Fargo Davies High School.

The school district is looking into what grade level the civil rights movement and information about the KKK are being taught, according to a district spokeswoman.

Arason has been talking with Fargo Superintendent Jeffrey Schatz, the first principal of Davies High School, which was named in honor of Ron Davies, a Fargo-based federal district judge whose 1957 rulings integrated Central High School in Little Rock, Ark. Schatz has a school video about the judge that may be used for students in Grand Forks.

“I think we would look to our social studies teachers to use it as part of our curriculum,” Arason said.