The University of Mississippi has sought out three students for questioning in connection to the vandalism of a statue of James Meredith on campus, SeattlePi.com reported.
In a statement, the university said the three 19-year-old white males from Georgia have been called for questioning but all have declined to cooperate and acquired legal counsel. Their names have not been released.
Two of the men have been contacted by university police and all three are considered significant to the investigation.
On Sunday, school officials discovered the statue of James Meredith -- who in 1962 became the first black student to enroll at the all-white university -- with a noose on the neck and a Georgia flag with a confederate battle emblem, though the updated flag design no longer includes the emblem.
During a press conference at the Capitol, Mississippi NAACP President Derrick Johnson called the incident a "racial hate crime."
"At what level do they get prosecuted?" he asked the crowd at the meeting. "I don't know. But as long as we tolerate hate, we will continue to revisit history and the past of this state, and at some point, we must move forward."
Deborah R. Madden, a spokesman for the Mississippi FBI, said the university's campus must do more than charge those responsible with the vandalism to move past racism.
"You cannot have a university where, when you turn down the main drag, it's called Confederate Drive," she said, in reference to a large street near the school. "At some point, we're going to have to reverse course on the image of Ole Miss so we can reverse course on the image of the state of Mississippi."
According to the Associated Press, the Ole Miss Alumni Association is offering a reward of $25,000 to anyone with information on the investigation.
