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NY Times, Mar. 10 2015
University of Oklahoma Expels 2 Students Over Racist Fraternity Video
By MANNY FERNANDEZ
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 chapter 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.”
In nearby 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.
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