University of Oklahoma severs ties with fraternity after racist video surfaces
“Those that have misused their free speech in a such reprehensible way… are disgraceful”
The University of Oklahoma dissolved ties with Sigma Alpha Epsilon today. The decision was rendered after a video surfaced showing members of SEA engaging in racist chants like, “there will never be a n***** SAE.”
Warning: Offensive language
Last night, University President, David Boren indicating an investigation into the video was underway:
If the video is indeed of OU students, this behavior will not be tolerated and is contrary to all of our values. We are investigating. – DBo
— David Boren (@President_Boren) March 9, 2015
This morning protestors gathered in protest of the SAE video. According to ESPN, Bob Stoops and members of the OU football team attended the protest.
Dr. George Henderson, Norman's first African American homeowner in attendance at @OU_Unheard this morning. pic.twitter.com/OPVcHs98HC
— Bijan Hosseini (@BijanHosseini) March 9, 2015
Students gathered at Evans Hall earlier this morning. @OU_Unheard @UofOklahoma pic.twitter.com/1ZMsy4T94x
— Bijan Hosseini (@BijanHosseini) March 9, 2015
This afternoon, Boren released a statement calling SAE members disgraceful and ordering them to vacate the frat house by midnight Tuesday night.
Updated statement attached – DBo pic.twitter.com/xxfiJwCh0P
— David Boren (@President_Boren) March 9, 2015
Then, SAE’s national headquarters released a statement issuing an apology and indicated they’d closed the OU chapter. Additionally, all SAE members of the OU chapter were suspended and threatened with membership revocation pending an investigation.
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Comments
You know, I have listened to ‘conversations on race’ for the last 40 years. And, I gotta tell you, I don’t think I really give a **** anymore.
Just wondering if a single one of the protesting students was out there protesting the vile commentary by Louis Farrakhan.
But you don’t actually know. Why don’t you check back in when you actually know something.
Really, kids. In the Smartphone Age, do you really, REALLY think no one was going to record this disgraceful thing you were doing?
First, you’re racists. Second, and even bigger than that, you’re IDIOTS!
Oh, so quick to criticize and categorize.
I hope SAE has a team of investigators and lawyers gathering documentation of all campus pro-black organizations the university supports, including fraternities and sororities, every anti-discrimination policy, etc., every anti-white slur, every discriminatory practice in admissions, the whole ball of wax and sue the university down to its panties and shoelaces.
We all know damn well that if the races were reversed, the fraternity would get a slap on the hand or letter of reprimand, at the most. I doubt that there would even be suspensions looming for the participants.
Uh… From the news reports, SAE just disowned them. Hard.
Odd that you can be “edgy and transgressive” in the approved, lock-step ways of the Collective, but not in any other.
Don’t misunderstand. I deplore racism and elitism.
But a bus-load of “Blacklivesmatter” or LaRaza people doing the same thing would be tolerated…even approved.
With the current Criminstration, I could fully believe Eric Holder and Obama put them up to this – with pay!
Snark!
It was a vile little song, but isn’t it protected by the 1st Amendment? Since Univ of Ok is a public University, how can they expel the students (which is what President David Boren wants to do)?
Boren is a huge Democrat you know!
They can’t.
Eugene Volokh: “No, a public university may not expel students for racist speech.”
“They can’t.”
Oh… U of O just… did.
Yes, he has updates there covering the situation as it’s evolving.
Thanks, good find. Comments are interesting too.
If anyone is still following/still interested, Eugene has a new post up:
What speech is going to justify expulsion next, if the OU / SAE expulsion is accepted as proper?
He then goes on to give several examples. What a can of worms.
Waiting for the left to boycott rap artists and their hate lyrics on women……waiting for the righteous group ethic to howl……still waiting…….
Well, here it is, at last, the smoking gun. If the diversity trainers at to be believed young blacks will see this and be so traumatized they will start having out of wedlock children, quit learning mathematics or English, give up on the educational system and live lives of crime. All because the SAEs decided to sing their little exclusionary ditty in a private setting. At least America can’t say it wasn’t warned.
Judging by the comments here, I think this would be a good time to review what a First Amendment Protection is, and how it applies to the Government’s actions, not Contract Law. If I understand it correctly, the First Amendment restrains Congress from making a Law which would restrict the Right to Free Speech; however you can sign a contract that limits your activities in order to remain a member of a group.
If you violate the rules of your contract, the First Amendment restriction on the Congress really doesn’t apply… but I will concede that this is just my understanding and common sense… I am not a scholar.
What do you say, Professor J? Do you have a Andrew Branca of the First Amendment in the wings? We could use them.
Not in the wings exactly, but over there on the blogroll certainly:
Here’s his take on this.
Ignore Boren. As Insty points out, “Well, to be fair, OU President David Boren is a former Democratic Senator, so you can’t expect him to understand the Constitution.”
“Those that have misused there free speech in a such reprehensible way… are disgraceful”
Can’t anyone in college whine and spell at the same time?
Their, there now.
Since the site editor remains on sick leave, I mention it only because LI articles get linked all over and there/their/they’re errors look, well, dumb.
Thank you. I saw that and it about made my eyes bleed. The error is only in the quotation in the title; it appears that the university president got it right.
It was just now magically corrected.
I have zero sympathy with those purportedly on the video (which I do not need to watch to form the following opinion) but just how in the he** can anyone be evicted from any premises on a single day’s notice?
I agree. Was every fraternity member on the bus? If someone was not, how can they be evicted for the other members’ actions? Maybe after 30 days but not in 24 hours
A priori to the First Amendment is the self-governing moral principle of loving your neighbor as yourself. Our Constitution, our Democracy is self-mockery if we cannot self-govern our behavior.
University President, David Boren denounced the “JV” behavior, as he should have.
No, there are no a priori requirements for civil rights. They don’t have to be earned, they don’t have to be justified, they don’t have to be explained, they don’t have to be rationalized, and they don’t have to be approved by anybody, “authority figures” least of all.
The Bill of Rights is basically a list of “thou shalt nots” which apply to our government. As Tom Swift points out, there’s no prerequisite that we be “nice people” so as to “earn” these rights.
Some nasty old curmudgeon who has never loved a single neighbor ever is just as protected by the 1st, 2nd and even 3rd amendment as Nancy Nice the Bible School Teacher is.
That’s why the 1st Amendment protects the Westboro creeps’ right to hold up “God Hates Fags” signs outside military funerals, or Rev. Wright’s right to proclaim “God Damn America!” and to spout weird racist conspiracy theories about AIDS from the pulpit.
The University openly discriminating by race in its admissions is, of course, perfectly acceptable.
Apparently, the 1st Amendment is dead – at least to liberals.
“Those that have misused there free speech in a such reprehensible way… are disgraceful” – the word you’re looking for there is “THEIR”. Imbecile.
The word is spelled correctly in Boren’s statement. See the last tweet posted. The headline writer is at fault. There are about five other errors in the writing, so some proofreading is in order.
wasn’t this done on a private bus off school property and not at a school function? thought I had read it was earlier.
don’t like what they were singing but I hate thought crime laws/punishments even more.
You might like the USA Today piece by Robert Shibley (executive director of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education [FIRE]) on this.
“Instead of government crackdowns on a viewpoint, it is far better to let the marketplace of ideas determine the social consequences for racist speech.”
Megyn had a soft spoken Isaac Hill on last night, the University’s black student association’s president. He said he has never experienced such feelings on campus as expressed in that chant. But he did say the university is experiencing “diversity problems”. The university’s white student association president was not available for comment.
It was certainly good that Isaac came out against the death threats and graffiti and said (paraphrased) “let’s meet hate with love”. But there was too much grovelling tone from Megyn for me, as if all white America needed to apologize to this man that never felt ANY of that hate on campus at all.
“How hard that must be, think if that were you that they were chanting about in those terms” Megyn said. Come on Megyn, Sharpton and Obama openly call all white tea partiers racist on a regular basis, and there is no white version of Obama/Sharpton to collect money for us, or get the blacks or even illegals expelled for such racist hate exhibited in much higher percentages.
These stupid frat rats made private (apparently) racist comments that were presented without context to the whole nation, and the reaction was death threats, expulsion without due process, and graffiti. Does that indicate which demographic holds most power on racial issues?
It seems to me we are making all the wrong arguments. White America recoils when they hear “the N word” because white America is probably the least racist demographic in the world. Yet blacks are emboldened to hear it, as seen in this case’s hyper reaction. Sharpton has dollar signs roll in his eyes if he can ever find an instance of its use by someone of means. And God forbid if emails of a few cops are found to have off colored jokes … Holder will step in and shut them down if necessary, after inspiring and allowing the mobs to raze a village.
Recall Pelosi marching with the black caucus through the tea party group, and when they couldn’t instigate racial hate, they fabricated it by claiming they heard “the N word” fifteen times. Multiple A/V recordings in the midst of the event never heard it once, but the false allegation works.
These guys on a bus have no power, and may well not be racist at all, but just sick of having to score 250 points higher on SAT’s to get admitted, and told their speech must be monitored, and they must endure their parent’s upbringing being surgically transplanted with the “PC Diversity Enrichment, atheist Marxist Religion”.
Obama and Holder have power, and they call America racist, by which they mean white people act stupidly. But to them there is no black or brown racism, but rather righteous outrage, per martyrs Trayvon and Brown. White guilt and mythical diversity enrichment based on skin color.
God Bless them, as Megyn said.
1. It’s sad to think young adults are this stupid.
2. A couple of frat/sorority groups from U-Mich tore up a northern Michigan ski resort. Maybe $50k damage. One was SAM, known when I was a Greek as pretty uptight. Nobody ever said being the Sammy academic chairman was a tough job. But once you get a critical mass of drunks going, others get going, too. Mob psychology. Thing is, a house gets a kind of inertia in the arc of its behaviors and if not hauled back from buttheadedness will get worse.
3. Just for grins, what if this is a hoax?
4. Hannah Graham (aka “who?”) was unavailable for comment.
one addendum:
The “use by date” had long since expired on the race card’s legit use in 1990, when young Barack Obama found a new use for it, later applied to the divide and conquer Alinsky playbook.
In response to a Mr Chin’s complaint of the stigmatizing effects of affirmative action, Obama inadvertently affirmed that pushing underqualified students through would not be a problem … for minorities.
and the rest is history
http://hlrecord.org/?p=11263
I saw this on a news crawler, then watched the video here. Stupid? Yes. Racist? Yes. But then again I have thought that about most Rap music I have had the misfortune of inadvertently hearing. Add violent and brutally sexist to my impression of Rap music. But I guess that is acceptable in today’s culture. SMH, and I am not excusing the young people in this video. Not at all.
Black activities on campus, including black fraternity parties, should be monitored incessantly. The first time one of them plays an anti-white rap song at a gathering or in a dorm room, etc., the same punishment should be DEMANDED.
If it had been an anti-Jewish or Christian chant I wonder if the university would have responded as quickly or harshly. I think we know that they would not have.
I’m shocked, shocked that members of a college fraternity chose to obliterate the boundaries of respectability to indulge in such repulsive behavior. I would have suggested mandatory toilet/urinal/garbage duty for all involved for the rest of the year — but our delusion on purity requires that these lads be purged and our memory of them be expunged. Clearly the academic utopia isn’t about proportionate discipline and opportunity to make amends.
I do like your solution, better. A little public humiliation can go a long way. The University President, David Boren, is not going to want to do this, because having the jerks around will be a side show until the end of the semester, and if one of them gets injured, it will be years before the whole thing dies down.
What college campus wants to be the Next Big Focus of the Hands-Up-Don’t-Shoot and OWS crowds? The campus would get trashed, the reputation of the college would suffer, and the “activists” might succeed in forcing the university to hire a bunch more parasites (it’s called “funding chairs.”)
Right. It’s far more expedient to just make a show of dumping these kids down a hole forever for what was, at most, a slight lapse in judgment. And by lapse in judgment, I’m speaking of whomever posted/released the video.
I’d like to know who the candyass was who went sniveling about it in the first place and got the anti-white discrimination against this fraternity machine going in the first place.
Stupid young adults are stupid. Any normal thinking person would find a chant or song like this disgusting. And yes, they were within their 1st Amendment rights to chant this, but no, the 1st Amendment doesn’t preclude other citizens from using their 1st Amendment rights from calling them out for it.
The fact that others might also be racist (La Raza, various Black Supremacist groups, etc) doesn’t make these morons any less racist. Call them all out.
P.S. to the MSM: the University of Oklahoma is not a “major Southern university.” Back to Geography 101 for you!
But white power groups are outcasts, whereas La Raza is politically catered to, and Black Liberation Theology was the 20 year church of our president.
Cries of racism are a tool of the left used only in one direction. The moves toward federalizing police departments by calling them racist (with no real evidence), using civil rights laws as a hammer, is taking us down the wrong path. The same as the “equal rights” claims for illegal aliens whose rights are in Mexico.
I have to give thirty day written notice to evict a tenant, so the “you have 24 hours” is just more evidence of the one way street. OK must have different laws for frats. I don’t care about the stupid kids, it’s about the national hypersensitivity in only one direction. This is not the MLK dream, it’s the Marxist nightmare.
What’s legal and not legal, I’ll leave to the lawyers. I already opined that theirs was likely protected speech in a constitutional sense. But I’m not going to give these jerks a free pass just because they’re white, or just because people from other groups demonstrate racial bigotry as well. I’m pretty well inured to the “But mom, they do it too!” line. Well, yeah, I call them out too. But don’t we want to use our moral judgements to try to nudge societal standards up to the highest common denominator rather than to excuse everyone racing everyone else to the gutter?
I get your frustration, that other groups seem to get away with saying equally bigoted things with no blow-back, but I won’t let that kind of frustration reorient my moral compass. Wrong is still wrong.
I’m not saying to give these jerk kids a break at all. But for the left, finding isolated incidents is played up in media, and used as a weapon against all “check your privilege” whites, not just these idiot nobodies.
I’m not frustrated that minorities get away with it, but that “drunk racist frat” is manufactured into proof of nationwide racism. Civilized society is fragile, and highlighted incidents like this are their wrecking ball.
The nation ALL knows about these drunk racist kids singing, but we don’t hear about Mandela torture murders or communist ties … he’s enshrined as a martyred hero that fought for racial fairness. They use the apartheid and divestment strategies here as well, even as black racists terrorize South Africans. It’s a one way street.
http://www.amazon.com/Into-Cannibals-Pot-Lessons-Post-Apartheid-ebook/dp/B00564TFM4
Anyway, I’m just trying to place this bit of propaganda into the proper geopolitical context, as atheist Marxists continue their domination of our universities. The race card gave us Obama, and we don’t seem to have learned our lesson. 🙂
The song is filled with horrible lyrics, but for my moral development, could the ethical paragons in charge please identify and prioritize the landmine offenses, such as words that assent to:
1) abuse, violence and/or rape of women
2) sex with a political candidate’s minor daughters
3) death or maiming of a political official
4) rape of a political official
5) death of unborn children
6) violence or harm against Blacks
7) violence or harm against gays
8) violence or harm against climate change skeptics
9) violence or harm against Jews
No doubt the paragons in charge will apply their standards consistently and in proper proportion. But does the race, gender, orientation or politics of the speaker make a difference? Is the offense absolved if the speaker claims satire or that the words were used “symbolically”? Which offenses merit tape across the mouth protest, and which ones don’t? Which offenders get a pass, which ones get a chance to rehabilitate, and which ones suffer permanent expulsion and exile?
Oh, and which phrases are constitutionally protected as free speech?
…how can they expel the students (which is what President David Boren wants to do)?
He has a pen and a phone. It’s what Presidents do, these days.
Boren? Heck, expect an Executive Order from obola on this in …5…4…3…2…1
Surely he’s read about it in the newspaper by now.
Doesn’t matter. He just… did.