The U.S. Military Academy said on Tuesday that it wouldn’t discipline 16 black female cadets who posed for a photo with their fists raised before commencement, the Associated Press reports.

West Point says cadets didn't violate any rules in posing for photo with raised fists: https://t.co/KGIHXxMGvI pic.twitter.com/JLddJRoEHW

— The Associated Press (@AP) May 11, 2016

The photo ignited criticism last week on social media, The New York Times reported, as commenters “accused the women of allying themselves with the Black Lives Matter movement and sowing racial divisions in a military that relies on assimilation.”

An inquiry “found that the cadets did not pre-plan or set out to make a political statement,” West Point’s superintendent, Lt. Gen. Robert Caslen Jr., said in a letter to students. But while the investigation concluded the cadets didn’t violate Defense Department rules limiting political activity, General Caslen said, they showed “a lapse of awareness in how symbols and gestures can be misinterpreted and cause division.”