Dozens of black college students in Georgia said they were asked to leave a Donald Trump rally on their campus Monday for standing silently on gymnasium bleachers before the business magnate began speaking.
Valdosta State University students said Secret Service agents were told by Trump to remove them, according to Jennifer Jacobs, a Des Moines Register reporter who was at the event.
Secret Service spokesman Robert Hoback told HuffPost the agency does not escort protestors or disruptors out of events. He said the students were asked to leave by local law enforcement and privately hired event staff members.
The Trump campaign denied asking its staff to eject the students. "There is absolutely zero truth to that," campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks told CNN.
"I think we got kicked out because we're a group of black people," a tearful student said in a video posted by USA Today. "I guess ... they're afraid we're going to say something or do something. But we just really wanted to watch the rally. To get kicked out because we're a group of black people ... shows you how racist our own school is."
Another student said the group decided to stand quietly in the bleachers wearing black attire as a statement. The group had no intention to disrupt the candidate, the student said.
The incident happened the same day Black Lives Matter protestors interrupted a Trump speech during a campaign stop in Virginia. At that rally, a Time magazine photographer was thrown to the ground in a chokehold by a Secret Service agent after stepping outside of the press pool.
Trump has drawn widespread condemnation in recent days after being slow to distance himself from white supremacists supporting him, namely KKK leader David Duke.
A video tweeted by a Valdosta student appears to show Snapchat footage of the group as they were ejected.
This article has been updated to include comments from the Secret Service and the Trump campaign.
Editor's note: Donald Trump is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist, birther and bully who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims -- 1.6 billion members of an entire religion -- from entering the U.S.
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