It was not a public performance — a few dozen students and faculty were the only ones to witness the final presentation of three theater majors at Cornish College of the Arts, in Seattle. But that hasn’t stopped the nature of the performance from becoming the center of a campuswide controversy that has prompted calls from some students for immediate administrative action.

The presentation, which took place March 31, was part of a theater course in which students are asked to perform in clown character. The assignment called on students to portray a historical event. One group, made up of two white men and one white woman, chose to focus on the civil rights movement.

According to Annika Keller, a senior theater major who saw the performance, the actors showed “a dimwitted” Martin Luther King Jr. forgetting his “I Have a Dream” speech and then being shot by another character. In a portrayal of the Greensboro student sit-ins, the performers, playing black students, ordered food such as fried chicken and chitlins, Keller said.

“At that point, nobody was with them anymore,” Keller said. “It had nothing to do with the civil rights movement. It was a blatant stereotypical observation.