Man indicted in incident involving noose on Univ. of Mississippi statue - Reuters

(Reuters) - A former University of Mississippi student has been indicted on civil rights charges accusing him of draping a noose and a Confederate flag around the neck of a statue of the school's first black student, U.S. prosecutors said on Friday.

Graeme Phillip Harris conspired with others on Feb. 16, 2014, to hang a rope and an old version of the Georgia state flag featuring the Confederate battle symbol around the neck of the school's statue of James Meredith, prosecutors said.

Meredith braved white segregationist mobs in 1962 to integrate the school in Oxford, Mississippi.

In the wake of the 2014 incident, the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity indefinitely suspended its chapter at the school after learning that the three students suspected of involvement were members.

Harris, who a school spokeswoman said withdrew from the university in the spring of 2014, is charged with one count of conspiracy to violate civil rights and one count of using a threat of force to intimidate African-American students because of their race or color, prosecutors said.

"This shameful and ignorant act is an insult to all Americans and a violation of our most strongly-held values," U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement.

"By taking appropriate action to hold wrongdoers accountable, the Department of Justice is sending a clear message that flagrant infringements of our historic civil rights will not go unnoticed or unpunished."

The University of Mississippi campus was the scene of riots in 1962, when mobs of white segregationists protested the admission of Meredith, the school's first black student. Two men died and dozens of people were wounded as federal officials escorted Meredith to campus.

Meredith was shot and seriously wounded by a white gunman in 1966 while engaging in a solitary march from Memphis, Tennessee, to Jackson, Mississippi, to encourage black voter registration.

The university has taken steps to shed remnants of its segregationist past. The school ditched its sports mascot, Colonel Reb, which many claimed looked like a white plantation owner, for the current mascot, a black bear.

(Reporting by Colleen Jenkins and Jonathan Kaminsky; Editing by Will Dunham)