According to news reports, weeks ago, Sept. 8, the Colorado College men’s hockey team made an annual pre-season golf outing. The theme in mind was television shows, with the players divided up, representing characters from “Baywatch,” “Scrubs,” “Entourage,” the WWE and “The Office.”

Then there were the four players doing “Family Matters,” the show running through the 1990s that featured the imitable Steve Urkel reliably irking the Winslows, a Chicago middle-class black family.

Those players—the senior captain, two sophomores and a freshman, according to The Gazette in Colorado Springs, Colo.—came dressed, ill-fatedly, in blackface and costumes of the characters. Colorado College then punished the four, eliminating them from hockey activities for two weeks and putting them on disciplinary probation for the rest of the school year.

Colorado College president Richard Celeste, in a statement released by The Associated Press, said an incident occurred several weeks ago in which “students engaged in inappropriate and offensive behavior” and that “the college took this situation very seriously and acted as quickly as possible to take substantial disciplinary action and create opportunities for dialogue.”

So far, according to The Gazette, the players met with local branches of the NAACP and the Urban League and participated in a campus forum with members of the Black Student Union. The four also have to take an extra course on diverse cultures. It appears the suspensions had already been served before the CC Tigers played their pre-season exhibition games.

Whether the punishment fit the crime or if a crime occurred in the first place is a question that can be taken from any number of angles. In reading reactions online and in discussion, I’ve seen and heard people bemoaning disciplinary measures that are too light or political correctness taken to an extreme. Somewhere in the middle are those unable to decide whether we’ve advanced to the point where it is acceptable to evoke a period of minstrel shows and racist archetypes.

No, this is not as clear-cut a case as the one involving Don Imus, whose listeners were legion. There’s no room for a radio talk-show host to debase a model basketball team’s members in a racist fashion. I’m wondering whether there’s room for part of an intimate gathering on a golf course to paint their faces black and wear wigs.

The inclination is to believe what Scott Thauwald, captain of the Tigers, told The Gazette, saying that “there was no racial intent” and that “the intent was to have good costumes.”

But even if you believe him on that account—and there exists no reason not to—the inclusion of blackface suggests the players are either ignorant of American history or simply miscalculated the effects of their actions.

Either way, Colorado College was justified in taking action. College campuses, of all places, have no room to allow action with racist overtones.

Even if the four players did not miss any actual playing time, they did meet with black organizations and learned about the history of blackface, a practice started in the early 19th century with white actors using burnt cork to paint their faces black and then affecting black speech and mannerisms.

And that’s for the best, as players from the Colorado College men’s hockey team put this episode behind them and go forward with their season, while considering a lesson learned.

E-mail Jon at bortin@wisc.edu to comment.