BATON ROUGE, LA (WAFB) - LSU may have clobbered Kent State on the football field Saturday, but it's what happened off the field that some say made LSU look like the losing school.
The Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity hung a banner from their house on Dalrymple Drive that read, "Getting massacred is nothing new to Kent State." The statement is a reference to the infamous 1970 shootings on the Kent State campus.
The Ohio National Guard opened fire on a group of unarmed students protesting the Vietnam War. Four were killed and nine others wounded.
The picture quickly spread on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, prompting a response from Kent State spokesman Eric Mansfield:
May 4, 1970 was a watershed moment for the country and especially the Kent State family. We lost four students that day while nine others were wounded and countless others were changed forever.
We take offense to the actions of a few people last night who created an inappropriate sign and distracted from the athletic contest on the field.
Our new May 4 Visitor Center, which opened less than a year ago, is another way in which Kent State is inviting the country to gain perspective on what happened 43 years ago and apply its meaning to the future.
We would invite those who created the sign to visit our campus to visit the May 4 Visitor Center and learn more about the event which forever changed Kent State and America.
LSU spokesman Ernie Ballard said the LSU Police Department was notified of the banner Saturday and asked the fraternity to remove it. It was taken down without incident, Ballard said. Ballard says new LSU System President and Chancellor F. King Alexander also saw the banner and has said the fraternity could face disciplinary action from the university.
A new banner was hanging in its place Sunday. That one reads, "We would like to apologize to Kent State for our inappropriate sign."
The Zeta Zeta DKE chapter also issued a written apology to Kent State: