A GROUP of University of York students who “blacked up” to imitate the Jamaican bobsleigh team could face disciplinary action.

The four young men wore black paint and clothes to go to a party in an attempt to make themselves look like the cast of the cult 90s movie Cool Runnings.

In the film, John Candy turns a team of failed Jamaican athletes into a bobsleigh team for the 1988 Winter Olympics in Canada.

A picture of the group, posted on one student’s Facebook page, shows the four posing with a homemade sled made out of cardboard boxes.

The story was later picked up by a national newspaper.

University officials are also looking into claims that students at the same college wrecked their accommodation during a drunken rampage, causing £2,000 worth of damage, the student paper York Vision has reported.

A spokesman for the university said: “This was a regrettable series of incidents which fell below the levels of behaviour and respect for others that we encourage in our students. The matter is still under investigation and we reserve the right to take disciplinary action if university regulations have been broken.

“We are seeking to recover the cost of repairs to damage to student accommodation, replacement of broken furniture and extra cleaning.”

Sairish Tahir and Isabelle Scott, York University’s black, minority and ethnic officers, said: “This is an incredibly insensitive and arrogant decision made by a group of supposed young adults who thought that ‘blacking up’ and appropriating one’s race would be a great joke.

“Blacking up is steeped in a history of discrimination, degradation and bigotry.

“Choosing to perpetuate these racial stereotypes to create shock value seems to be an increasing common theme across young people at universities and will certainly not be tolerated as acceptable behaviour, in this day and age.”

Union president Kallum Taylor said: “I can’t see how any one studying here would think this ridiculous behaviour is anywhere near appropriate in any context.”