Bob Jones University, a fundamentalist Christian college in South Carolina, posted a statement on its Web site yesterday apologizing for its past racist policies, the Associated Press reported.

The university, which did not admit African-American students until 1971, had a policy forbidding interracial dating until 2000. Those policies were based in segregationist culture, not Scripture, the statement says.

In the spring of 2000, Bob Jones III, the university’s president at the time, made a surprise announcement reversing the dating policy on Larry King Live, the television talk show. That same week, however, the Greenville News, a local newpaper, reported that students would still need a note from their parents to date someone of another race.

The university said its current president, Stephen Jones, who is Bob Jones III’s son, had decided to issue the statement because he still fields questions about the institution’s views on race. —Beckie Supiano