Barack Obama Compared to Simians

In the US, a private high school stoke controversy for giving their students a biology assignment that instructed students to pick from a gallery of photos labelled apes, monkeys, and lemurs. And there, in the second row, was former President Barack Obama. 

In response to parents' complaints, the Roeper School in Birmingham, Michigan which advertises itself as a school for gifted students, sent a letter explaining that the homework came from a "highly regarded university" website. It did not name the University, but Deadline Detroit identified it as coming from Duke University and supplied a link to the "Introduction to Primates" course plan. 

For some reason, Duke University removed the lesson plan with the image, but it's easy to get on the Internet Archive. 

Obama's picture appears with six other pics that feature a monkey, a chimpanzee, a lemur and 3 non-primates. Above the photos is the question, "Which of the following are primates? Check all that apply". 

So, what's wrong? Humans are primates, and the primates that we most closely resemble are the apes. We are therefore classified along with all other apes in a primate sub-group known as the hominoids (Superfamily: Hominoidea). 

I suppose, to use a photograph of a black person in this context is insensitive, to say the least, given the history of racist people comparing black people to monkeys and/or apes. 

On Thursday, the school apologized for the usage of the worksheet and the harm it has caused. And the teacher responsible for the handout was put on administrative leave.

FYI:

Evolutionary relationships of Hominidae. © 2012 Nature Publishing Group Pääbo, Svante. The mosaic that is our genome. Nature 421, 409-412 (2003) doi:10.1038/nature01400. All rights reserved.