David Leebron reacted to the re-circulation of these images in 2019 by stating that "It is unsurprising but nonetheless deeply disturbing that racist imagery, including students in blackface and KKK outfits, appeared at Rice with some frequency during the years prior to the admission of black students." In 1923, a Ku Klux Klan event was held on a Rice-owned Louisiana Street location, near to the home of a Black woman who had filed a lawsuit against the institute in 1909.

The Founder's Memorial Statue,