Administrators at Louisiana State University have apologized for censoring photographs of male students who had painted Christian crosses on their chests at a football game.
“We erred in our judgment and we have communicated our apologies to the group of young men represented in the photo, whose school spirit is second to none,” said Ernest Ballard, director of media relations at LSU, in an e-mail to The Daily Caller News Foundation.
The photos in question depict a group of fans known as “The Painted Posse,” who paint themselves in their team’s colors at home games. They also paint small crosses on their chests to honor Jesus Christ, according to their Facebook page:
“Our goal as the Painted Posse is to portray Christ through our actions while cheering on our Tigers!”
University administrators published the photos in a campus-wide email following the football team’s October 13 win. The crosses, however, had vanished from the young men’s shoulders.
Administrators later admitted to airbrushing the Christian imagery out of the photographs — a decision they now regret, according Ballard.
“We did not intend to offend anyone by the editing of this photograph and in the future we will not make this kind of edit,” he wrote.
