The West Point military academy said Tuesday it would not punish 16 female African American cadets who posed for a photo with fists raised in what appeared to be militant style.

An inquiry found the cadets "did not violate Department of Defense or Army regulations," the prestigious US Military Academy said in a statement, adding the photo was taken in the "spur-of-the-moment" and intended to demonstrate "unity" and "pride," not support for a political movement.

Some critics saw the pose struck by the cadets, dressed in their gray uniforms while standing on barracks steps in late April, as an implicit show of support for the Black Lives Matter movement and therefore a potential violation of a Defense Department rule against "partisan political activity."

West Point seeks to portray itself as a melting pot that brings together talented students from across the country, without regard for racial or ethnic differences, for elite training as future military leaders. 

The young women were following a longtime tradition where soon-to-be graduates each year strike stern and straightlaced poses in historic style much as their predecessors have done for more than a century.

But instead of raising their sabers to the sky, as they did in another photo without controversy, the black student-officers sparked a mini-tempest by raising their fists in a school with a predominantly white and male student population.

Some active-duty officers and army veterans complained that the pose seemed to violate Pentagon rules by paying tribute to the black nationalism of the civil rights-era Black Panthers group or to the militant tone of the present-day Black Lives Matter protests against police abuses.

But others defended the women saying they were more "Beyonce" than "Black Panther."