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[h=4]National SAE fraternity disciplined 131 times since 2010[/h]The fraternity at the center of a scandal involving a racist song is no stranger to controversy — Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE) members have been on the receiving end of about 130 disciplinary proceedings over
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An African-American alumnus of the University of Oklahoma's Sigma Alpha Epsilon chapter says the racist behavior of members in that now infamous video would never have been tolerated during the time he was at the fraternity. VPC
Facility workers removed the letters from the Sigma Alpha Epsilon house at the University of Oklahoma on March. 9, 2015, in Norman, Okla. University President David Boren severed the school's ties with a national fraternity on Monday and ordered that its on-campus house be shuttered after several members took part in a racist chant caught in an online video.(Photo: Nick Oxford, AP)
The fraternity at the center of a scandal involving a racist song is no stranger to controversy. Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE) chapters nationally have been on the receiving end of about 130 disciplinary proceedings over the past five years, the group says.
There were so many mishaps involving new members that the fraternity said last year it would end the traditionally raucous pledge period in favor of immediate full membership for anyone who accepts an invitation to join.
Since 2006, at least 10 deaths associated with SAE have been linked to hazing, alcohol or drugs, Bloomberg News reported last year.
SAE's expulsion this week from the University of Oklahoma is the latest in a series of incidents that have plagued the fraternity, one of the USA's largest, since 2010.
The video posted online Sunday by Unheard, a black student group at the university, shows students on a rented bus singing racial slurs targeting blacks. The song, which makes reference to lynching, says blacks would never be admitted to the fraternity's chapter in Norman, Okla. The chapter has had black members in the past, and nationally the fraternity membership is racially diverse, the national organization says.
USA TODAY
Oklahoma students apologize for racist video
After a video clip of the SAE members singing went viral Sunday, University of Oklahoma President David Boren kicked the fraternity off campus and told its members they had until Tuesday night to clear out of the fraternity house.
It isn't the first time SAE has been kicked off a college campus, at least temporarily. The fraternity itself details 131 incidents dating to 2010 in which chapters have violated alcohol, hazing or other regulations and been placed on probation or suspended, sometimes for years.
The listings, available on SAE's website, are the result of a settlement in a lawsuit involving the death of a freshman at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. Eighteen-year-old Carson Starkey was found dead the morning of Dec. 2, 2008, after a hazing ritual with the school's SAE chapter. He had an estimated blood-alcohol level about five times the state's legal limit. No other fraternity sued after a tragedy has agreed to post such a report.
Douglas Fierberg, a Washington, D.C., lawyer who represented Starkey's family, said fraternities' problems with drinking, sexual assault and pledge deaths and injuries come from the same "flawed management system" that allowed undergraduates to belt out a racist song.
"The fundamental management rests with 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds," he said. "There's effectively no mature adult management and supervision. It's like Lord of the Flies."
Fierberg, who specializes in representing victims of school violence and their families, cited research showing that banning alcohol at a fraternity house reduces the risk of fraternity members' deaths by 90%. At two recent SAE conventions, national executives recommended a ban, but the members — most of them not old enough to drink legally — rejected it, Fierberg said.
SAE did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
One of the USA's largest fraternities, SAE has more than 240 chapters and 15,000 members. In a statement issued Monday, it said it is "not a racist, sexist or bigoted fraternity." It offered "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."
The chant sung on the bus is not part of a Sigma Alpha Epsilon tradition, the national office said. SAE has songs dating back more than a century, but the chant "is in no way endorsed by the organization," it said.
SAE's national office closed the Oklahoma chapter and suspended all of its members. Those involved in the incident, the group said, would face expulsion.
The group's national president, Brad Cohen, apologized for the video, saying SAE was "disgusted that any member would act in such a way."
On his Facebook page, Cohen said late Monday that the past 24 hours had been "extremely emotional, embarrassing and frustrating for us all." A "few bigoted idiots, through a 9 second video, showed their true colors and beliefs and did enormous harm to the other 15,000 undergraduates, our 200,000 alumni, your staff and Supreme Council all who were equally disgusted by their vile and racist behavior. This behavior was in no way reflective of who we are as SAEs and what we stand for."
Pete Smithhisler, president and CEO of the North-American Interfraternity Conference, supported Cohen "for taking swift action to close SAE's University of Oklahoma chapter and expel its members. The behavior shown in the video is appalling and is not reflective of what fraternities are or what they promote."
Contributing: Jodi Upton, Malak Monir
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