LEXINGTON, S.C. – A South Carolina teacher was pulled from the classroom after parents complained about an assignment that tasked fifth-graders with justifying the KKK’s actions following the Civil War.

The assignment was distributed to students at Oak Pointe Elementary and the family member of one student posted a copy on Facebook, prompting a fierce public backlash that forced Lexington-Richland School District Five officials to respond, WLTX reports.

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The assignment asked students to describe the “purpose and motivation” of the KKK, as well as the “effects on opportunities of African Americans.”

Students were then tasked with both defending the KKK and describing the new life of a freedman.

“You are there … You are a member of the KKK,” it read. “Why do you think your treatment of African Americans is justified?”

“You are there … You are a freedman. Are you satisfied with your new life? Why or why not?”

“This is my little 10-year-old nephew’s homework assignment today,” Tremain Cooper, uncle of a student in the class, posted to Facebook with an image of the assignment on Thursday, according to USA Today. “He’s home crying right now.”

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“The teacher’s name is Kerri Roberts at Oakpoint Elementary (sic) in District 5 … How can she ask a 5^th grader to justify the actions of the KKK? We are contacting everybody from the school to the media. Please help,” Cooper wrote in the post.

Folks online went into a rage.

“That’s just APPALLING,” Myra Hillen wrote. “Who the hell approved this homework assignment?!”

Many others – including black and white commenters, as well as teachers – defended the lesson as an exercise in critical thinking.

“Y’all tripping,” Ray Harrington posted. “That teacher didn’t do anything wrong.”

District officials apparently sided with outraged parents.

“School District Five is taking this matter very seriously. We took immediate action to investigate once the concerns over the assignment were brought to our attention, and the teacher has been placed on administrative leave as part of our standard personnel investigation procedures,” according to a prepared statement. “We have been in communication and will continue to be in communication with families to let them know our actions and next steps.

“South Carolina standards for 5^th grade require lessons on Reconstruction and discriminatory groups including the KKK,” the statement read. “We must teach the standard, but we are taking steps to ensure this particular assignment will never be used again in District Five schools.”

Neither the school district nor the media identified the teacher.

The controversy at Oak Pointe comes the same week officials at Whitney High School in Cerritos, California bound students with masking tape and forced them to lie on the ground “shoulder to shoulder” in a dark classroom to simulate a slave ship.

The “unique learning experience” also involved school staff serving as slave masters while the students watched clips from the 1988 film “Roots: The Gift” in the dark, the Daily Mail reports.