A couple of student-athletes at the University of Houston are in hot water for mocking a notorious lynching site in a video that subsequently circulated widely on social media, prompting some students to say they’re not surprised by their classmates’ insensitive behavior.
The video posted to an anonymous Twitter account Sunday showed two white collegiate volleyball players, Abbie Jackson and Isabel Theut, in a car, the University of Houston’s student newspaper The Cougar reported. There is no audio in the video, but it is captioned, “This is the hanging tree where we used to hang people (Columbus, Texas).”
The camera focuses on a tree in the distance, then moves to Jackson—a graduate student in the business school—who is driving, then shifts to Theut—a senior—who’s sitting behind Jackson and filming the location on her phone. The video continuously loops the footage of Jackson and Theut laughing during the ride. It is not clear who filmed Theut and Jackson’s reactions, but the anonymous Twitter account alleged freshman volleyball player Ryleigh Whitekettle uploaded it to her Snapchat.
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