2 University of Oklahoma students expelled over racist video
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A moving truck in the parking lot of the Sigma Alpha
Epsilon fraternity house on the University of Oklahoma's campus in Norman,
Okla., on Tuesday. The house was ordered shut after a video emerged of members
singing a racist chant. Credit Nick Oxford for The New York Times
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NORMAN, Okla. — Officials with the University of Oklahoma here
on Tuesday expelled two students they had identified as playing a leading role
in singing a racist chant on a bus over the weekend
that has sparked outrage across the country.
The university’s president, David L. Boren, a former Oklahoma governor, expelled the two students but did not identify them, saying in a statement that they had “created a hostile learning environment for others.”
Mr. Boren said the university was continuing its
investigation of all the students involved in singing the chant, and that once
the identities of other students had been confirmed, “they will be subject to
appropriate disciplinary action.”
The expulsion letter to the students states that the
action takes effect immediately and that they can contact the university’s
Equal Opportunity Officer to contest the decision.
The campus here has been reeling since members of Sigma
Alpha Epsilon were shown in two videos chanting a song whose lyrics included
racial slurs boasting that there would never be an African-American member and
referring to lynching, with the words, “you can hang ‘em from a tree.”
The university’s president as well as the fraternity’s
national headquarters in Illinois shut the chapter after the first video was
released on Sunday, and university officials severed all ties to it on Monday.
The fraternity’s house was ordered closed by midnight Tuesday and the national
fraternity suspended all of the members.
The video has also left the national headquarters of Sigma Alpha Epsilon defending
itself against claims that the racist song has been used for years, not just at
Oklahoma but on other campuses as well.
Former fraternity members in other states have claimed on
social media that the same chant was used at their colleges, and University of
Oklahoma officials who are investigating said they do not believe the song
originated on their campus.
“I’m not sure that it’s strictly local,” Mr. Boren said.
One Oklahoma student told NBC News that she heard
fraternity members chant the same song two years ago while on a bus to a
fraternity party. “I would definitely say this is not an isolated incident,”
said the senior, who had asked not to be identified.
The Sigma Alpha Epsilon chapter at Oklahoma has had black
members, but very few, and none recently, according to alumni. William Blake
James II wrote on his blog that when he joined in 2001, he
was only the second black member, “and there still hasn’t been a third black
man” and some of his former fraternity brothers, writing on Facebook, supported
that account.
“I don’t want to be angry, but I can’t help but feel grieved,” Mr. James said in an interview with a local television station, KFOR. “I feel like I’ve lost a family member.”
In
a statement, the fraternity’s national headquarters said it was
investigating several other incidents involving other chapters and members, but
did not elaborate. “Some reports have alleged that the racist chant in the
video is part of a Sigma Alpha Epsilon tradition, which is completely false,”
the fraternity said in the statement. “The fraternity has a number of songs
that have been in existence for more than a century, but the chant is in no way
endorsed by the organization nor part of any education whatsoever.”
The fallout continued to reverberate far from the
University of Oklahoma campus. One of the nation’s most sought-after high
school football players, Jean Delance of Mesquite, Tex., who is black, withdrew his previous commitment to play for Oklahoma,
citing the videos.
On Tuesday morning in Norman, a U-Haul truck sat in the
parking lot of the fraternity’s beige-brick house. The Greek letters have been
removed from a wall, and someone spray-painted “Tear It D,” apparently for
“tear it down.”
Mark Zachary, 54, pulled his truck into the lot and went
inside. Mr. Zachary was a member of the fraternity when he was a student at
Oklahoma State University in the late 1970s, and he said he had asked the
members if they needed help in moving. They declined his offer, he said.
“These guys messed up real bad, and I think they know they have,” Mr. Zachary said, adding that the house was barren and the students were quiet. “Everybody’s sick to their stomach. The guys that actually did the chanting, trust me, they feel worse than anybody in the country right now.”
The videos were recorded on Saturday night as members of
Sigma Alpha Epsilon and their dates rode on a bus to a formal event celebrating
the national fraternity’s Founders Day. The fraternity was founded on March 9,
1856, in Tuscaloosa, Ala. It celebrates that Southern heritage in its online
magazine, The Record, describing
a recent initiative “to bring Sigma Alpha Epsilon closer to its
antebellum roots, closer to the original experience and goals shared by the
Founding Fathers.”
To the north, in Stillwater, the Oklahoma State
University student newspaper published pictures of a Confederate flag that was
visible in the room of a Sigma Alpha Epsilon member at the fraternity’s house
there over the weekend. The chapter’s president told the newspaper, The O’Colly,
that the Confederate flag had never been a symbol of the fraternity and that he
and other chapter leaders asked the student to remove the flag.
In its statement, the national Sigma Alpha Epsilon denied
that it was in any way a racist organization.
“This type of racist behavior will not be tolerated and is not consistent with the values and morals of our fraternity,” the statement read, referring to the Oklahoma chant. “We have more than 15,000 collegiate members across the nation, and this incident should not reflect on other brothers because this type of hateful action is not what Sigma Alpha Epsilon stands for. This is absolutely not who we are.”
But the song is not the first time a Sigma Alpha Epsilon
chapter has been involved in a racially charged episode. The fraternity’s
chapters at universities across the country have faced sanctions or have been
forced to participate in cultural awareness programs over their members’ use of
racial slurs and their roles in theatrics deemed offensive to African-Americans.
Since the 1980s, there have been at least 10 such episodes.
In 1982, the University of Cincinnati issued a two-year suspension on
its Sigma Alpha Epsilon chapter after members held a “trash party” on the eve
of the holiday honoring the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and passed out
fliers encouraging revelers to bring canceled welfare checks and “a radio
bigger than your head.” The editor of the college newspaper said the flier also
listed a Ku Klux Klan hood and a portrait of James Earl Ray, the convicted
assassin of Dr. King.
In 1992, Texas A&M University fined its Sigma Alpha Epsilon chapter and put it on probation after it held a “jungle fever” party, where pledges in blackface and grass skirts were chased by members dressed in safari gear. The university fined the chapter $1,000 and canceled all sorority mixers the following spring and fall semesters. The chapter’s president apologized, but denied claims that members had used racial slurs and were portraying African slave hunts.
In 2006, the University of Memphis called for a temporary
suspension of its Sigma Alpha Epsilon chapter after members made derogatory
racial remarks about the black girlfriend of a white fraternity member. The
national fraternity suspended two of the college’s members for making comments
that “were inappropriate and unbecoming,” a spokesman said.
Manny Fernandez reported from Norman, and Richard Pérez-Peña
from New York.
Source - nytimes.com