UPDATE: May 10 -- West Point Academy will not take any punitive action against the 16 black female cadets who posed in a photograph with raised fists, the school announced on Tuesday.
"The inquiry concluded that the photo was among several taken in the spur-of-the-moment. It was intended to demonstrate 'unity' and 'pride,'" the school said in a statement.
The United States Military Academy at West Point is looking into whether 16 black female cadets violated rules against political expression by taking a photo in uniform with their fists in the air, an academy official told the Army Times.
The photo features the women, all of whom are on the verge of completing their final year, posing in front of the campus’s oldest barracks building in dress uniforms. Photos like this are apparently common at West Point as an homage to old-fashioned military portraits.
They chose to raise their fists, however, which angry commenters on social media interpreted as support for the Black Lives Matter movement and an inappropriate gesture for cadets.
But news of the investigation has inspired a wave of solidarity from sympathetic Americans.
The Department of Defense forbids active duty military personnel, which includes students at elite military colleges, from participating in “partisan political activity” while in uniform or otherwise representing the U.S. military.
Mary Tobin, an alumna of the school who knows the students, told The New York Times that the young women raised their fists as a sign of pride, not political expression.
“These ladies weren’t raising their fist to say Black Panthers,” Tobin said. “They were raising it to say Beyoncé.”
Brenda Sue Fulton, an alumna of the military college and chair of the school's board of visitors, also defended the students in comments to the Army Times. Fulton noted that the photo with raised fists was one of many different poses the young women struck, including one that she tweeted.
Fulton and others also point out that the raised fist is an accepted way for West Point students and fans to cheer on their sports teams. They argue that the young women are being held to a double standard.
There are 17 black women in West Point's 1,000-person graduating class, according to The New York Times; 16 of them were in the photo.
West Point has not said what the consequences will be if it finds the women guilty of violating the rules.
The raised fist is a gesture of political protest associated with a wide variety of causes. In the United States it is often identified with the Black Power movement of the 1960s. Olympic sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos were suspended after they posed with raised fists and bowed heads during the medal ceremony at the 1968 Olympics.
West Point has drawn scrutiny in recent years for other student impropriety -- albeit of a less political variety. Twenty West Point cadets received an unknown punishment in October 2014 for trying to woo prospective football team recruits with a boozy bus trip. In addition, the military academy’s annual freshman pillow fight last September resulted in 30 concussions and many other serious injuries. No students were reprimanded.
This article has been updated with additional statements made by Brenda Sue Fulton and others in defense of the female cadets.
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