By MANNY FERNANDEZ and RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑAMARCH 10, 2015
NORMAN, Okla. — Officials with theUniversity of Oklahoma here on Tuesday expelled two students they had identified as playing a leading role in singing a racist chant on a busover 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.”
Racist Fraternity Video Incites Protests
A protest was held on the University of Oklahoma campus in Norman after a video was posted online appearing to show members of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity singing an antiblack chant.
March 9, 2015. Photo by Bijan Hosseini.
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.
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