Trigger warning: The following post quotes a repulsive racist joke that features the N-word.

The Oxford University Conservative Association, one of Britain’s largest and most influential campus political organizations, has been stripped of its university recognition after members of its top leadership told racist jokes at an organization dinner — jokes that were met with applause, laughter, and cheers from the students in attendance.

OUCA is Oxford’s student affiliate of the right-wing Conservative Party. Many of the Conservatives’ top leaders are alumni of the OUCA, which has more than six hundred members. (Americans can think of the group as a vague equivalent of the Harvard Young Republicans, but much bigger and more influential.)

At a “hustings” dinner in June, candidates for the OUCA presidency were asked to repeat the most inappropriate joke they knew. One told a joke about lynching, while another, expatriate American Nick Gallagher, is said to have offered this: “What do you say when you see a television moving around in the dark? ‘Drop it nigger, or I’ll shoot you!’ ”

As I said at the top, reports suggest that there was no objection to either of these jokes from the crowd in attendance.

Gallagher and another student were suspended from OUCA after news of the jokes broke in the British press, and this week Oxford announced that it will no longer allow the group to use the university’s name or participate in the annual organizational fair for new students.

The most impressive part of the whole story was the defenses of Gallagher’s joke. Gallagher himself is said to have claimed that it was from a Chris Rock routine (um, no), while an unnamed friend offered this response:

“To suggest Nick is racist is just ridiculous. This has been blown out of all proportion and everyone just needs to lighten up.”