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[h=4]More fallout at Oklahoma after racist frat video[/h]The University of Oklahoma chapter of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity will close and its members will be suspended after the group's national headquarters said a video of members participating in a racist chant was posted online.
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The President of the University of Oklahoma announced he's severing ties with the local chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon after several members of the fraternity were caught on camera singing a racist song. VPC
Workers remove the letters from the Sigma Alpha Epsilon house at the University of Oklahoma on Monday, March. 9, 2015, in Norman, Okla.(Photo: Nick Oxford, AP)
The Greek letters have been removed from the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity house and the football team protested instead of practicing as fallout continued from an SAE video of members chanting racist remarks.at the University of Oklahoma.
School President David Boren, who joined hundreds of students at the Norman campus in a Monday protest, has already severed ties with the fraternity and promised a thorough investigation that could result in expulsion of some students from the school.
Fraternity members have until Tuesday night to clear out of the fraternity house.
"To those who have misused their free speech in such a reprehensible way, I have a message for you. You are disgraceful," Boren tweeted after the protest. "You have violated all that we stand for. You should not have the privilege of calling yourself 'Sooners.'"
Boren added that the school will become "an example to the entire country of how to deal with this issue. There must be zero tolerance for racism everywhere in our nation."
At a news conference later Monday, Boren said the school will review what actions it could take against individual students, particularly "some of those who took leading roles in orchestrating the chant."
The Oklahoma football team walked in protest, joined by coach Bob Stoops and the athletic director, Joe Castiglione.
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said the efforts by the university and the national fraternity to repudiate the racist comments were "an appropriate step."
Students move their furniture out of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon house at the University of Oklahoma on Monday in Norman, Okla.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>(Photo: Nick Oxford, AP)
Boren said fraternity members have until midnight Tuesday to remove their belongings from the fraternity house. He said the fraternity was "not totally forthcoming," and he was still trying to find out who was on the bus so the school could consider disciplinary actions.
He said the university's legal staff was exploring whether the students who initiated and encouraged the chant may have violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits racial discrimination.
"We are also going to look at any individual perpetrators, particularly those that we think took a lead in this kind of activity," Boren said.
The video was posted online Sunday by Unheard, a black student group at OU. The fraternity's national headquarters said Sunday night that an investigation confirmed that it was local SAE members on the video chanting racial slurs against blacks and indicating that blacks would never be admitted to the fraternity's chapter in Norman. The chant also makes reference to lynching.
The fraternity's national organization issued a statement saying the SAE chapter at the school has been closed and its members suspended from the national organization. SAE apologized for the video and said it did not reflect the views of its 15,000 members nationwide.
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Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity closed its University of Oklahoma chapter after a video surfaced online showing members participating in a racist chant. The black student group that released the video says their source wants to remain anonymous. VPC
"We are disgusted that any member would act in such a way," the statement said. "Furthermore, we are embarrassed by this video and offer our empathy not only to anyone outside the organization who is offended but also to our brothers who come from a wide range of backgrounds, cultures and ethnicities."
NBC News reported that a campus sorority, Delta Delta Delta, was under investigation for possible involvement of some of its members in the chanting seen in the video. At least one young woman can be seen in the video. The national office of the sorority said it was cooperating with the investigation.
On Monday, the fraternity building had been vandalized with graffiti. On one side of the building, in huge letters, was written "Tear it D." Two unidentified chapter members told The Oklahoma Daily, the student newspaper, that they had received death threats.
Pictures on social media showed workers removing from the building's exterior the Greek letters of the fraternity's name.
Immediately after the video was posted, an outpouring of tweets echoed the sentence "Racism is alive at the University of Oklahoma."
Kendall Brown of Oklahoma City tweeted that he was "glad so many are speaking out against SAE's OU chapter-but the convo must go further. The racism is institutional, the chant isn't new."
The national fraternity's decision to close came on the same day thousands of people gathered in Selma, Ala., to mark the 50th anniversary of "Bloody Sunday," a day in 1965 when peaceful protesters marching for voting rights were beaten by police.
OU is a state school with 30,000 students, two-thirds of them undergraduates. Almost two-thirds of the student body is white, about 5% is black and the rest other minority groups. Norman, a university town and the state's third-largest city, has a population of about 120,000 people.
Contributing: Kim Hjelmgaard in London, William M. Welch in Los Angeles; Associated Press
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