Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee photographed in the Confederate Uniformed Yearbook

According to the guidelines of the National Order 2018 Kappa Alpha published online, chapters are prohibited from posting Confederate battle flags at fraternity ceremonies since at least 2001.

In 2010, the organization banned members from wearing confederate uniform during events.

Chapters must not sponsor features with the Old South name or similarly named features. All functions and activities must be conducted with restraint and dignity and without signs and attributes that could be misinterpreted and offensive to the general public, "according to the organization.

USA TODAY YEARBOOK PROJECT: Blackface, KKK Hoods and simulacres of lynchings: a review of 900 directories reveals blatant racism

USA TODAY network directory project

After the publication of the photos of the 1984 Medical Directory page of Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, presenting a person wearing a blackface and another wearing a KKK hood, reporters from the US TODAY network undertook a comprehensive review of more than 900 publications in 120 schools across the country.

The journal offers a perspective on a range of cases that have emerged since the Northam reports and has shown that throughout the 1970s and 1980s, an impressive number of colleges and university directories published images of blatant racism on campus.

At Cornell University in New York, the 1980 yearbook listed three members of the fraternity: "Ku", "Klux" and "Klan". For the 1971 directory picture, a dozen members of the University of Virginia fraternity, some armed, wore hooded capes as they watched a lynched, black-faced mannequin. In one of the most striking images – from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Yearbook in 1981 – a black man smiles and holds a beer while posing with three people in ceremonial dress from KKK.

The reporters collected more than 200 examples of offensive or racist material in colleges in 25 states, in major southern public universities, in Ivy League schools in the north-east, and in liberal arts centers. and in the premises of Division I.

The US TODAY Network study, which covered the same period as the Northam Yearbook, did not identify any other politician after the extensive human rights reform. Few images bore captions to indicate names or context, and faces were often hidden behind balaclavas or blackheads.

In an article at Arizona State University, reporters found that USA TODAY editor Nicole Carroll had designed a page that included a photo of two people at a fraternity Halloween party under black makeup. of actress Robin Givens and boxer Mike Tyson. Carroll, editor of the directory in 1989 at the time of publication of the photo, expressed regret after learning the photo.

Experts say that even if school officials do not have direct control over the directories, the responsibility lies with the entire institution: A campus culture that encourages racist behavior; the staff of the directory who chose to commemorate it; and the administrations that did not condemn the images when they were published for the whole world to see them.