Racist Video Leads to Rebuke of US University Fraternity

[misskit]

A social fraternity at a major U.S. university is being sharply rebuked after a video emerged showing some of its members singing a raucous, racist chant.

The video showed members of the group at the University of Oklahoma, the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity, chanting a black racial slur and saying blacks could be hanged from trees, and never would be allowed as members of the fraternity at the school in the central part of the United States.

David Boren, the university's president, joined protesters against the fraternity at a pre-dawn rally Monday.

"These people have acted in a way that's absolutely reprehensible and disgraceful." He said adding that the video "has broken my heart" and was not representative of the school's 30,000 students.

Boren vowed quick discipline against students determined to have participated in the video.

National Sigma Alpha Epsilon officials said they were "embarrassed" by the "unacceptable and racist" chant. They closed the school's chapter of the fraternity, while university officials ordered students living in the fraternity house to find other housing off campus by midnight Tuesday. Boren said the fraternity chapter would not be allowed back on campus while he serves as the university president.

The video emerged Sunday just as Americans were commemorating the 50th anniversary of 1965 civil rights marches in Selma, Alabama in which police clubbed demonstrators as they called for enactment of a national voting rights law. U.S. President Barack Obama, the country's first black president and former president George W. Bush, joined numerous U.S. lawmakers and other officials in Selma to mark the milestone.

Racist Video Leads to Rebuke of US University Fraternity

[Neverna]

Two of the students have been expelled.



University Expels Students After Racist Chant


The University of Oklahoma has expelled two students caught making a racist chant on a video that has attracted national headlines.

College President David Boren said the two students had been identified as "playing a leadership role" in the offensive song, thereby creating a "hostile learning environment for others".

The 10-second video posted online on Sunday show students on a bus chanting in unison, using racial slurs while vowing never to admit black people into the fraternity.

Mr Boren said in a statement: "I have emphasised that there is zero tolerance for this kind of threatening racist behaviour at the University of Oklahoma."

Mr Boren said the college was trying to identify the other students who joined in the chant, warning they, too, would face disciplinary action.

[panama hat]

racism in the US? Egads . . . what a shock

[harrybarracuda]

racism in the US? Egads . . . what a shock

And the two ringleaders from Texas... what a turn up. Don't we know another retarded prick from there?

[BobR]

Sad that political correctness has replaced freedom of speech in America. Hopefully the expelled students will hire a good lawyer. Feee speech means nothing unless you can say what others do not want to hear, and this is a Government run school therefore subject to Constitutional restraints.

[blue]

Modern day McCarthyism

[harrybarracuda]

Sad that political correctness has replaced freedom of speech in America. Hopefully the expelled students will hire a good lawyer. Feee speech means nothing unless you can say what others do not want to hear, and this is a Government run school therefore subject to Constitutional restraints.

They can exercise all the Free Speech they want.

And the school can choose to disassociate itself from racist prick redneck daddys boys.

Get over it.

[blue]

Get over it.

Dear me.... bleating out a PC cliched stock saying, right on cue ....

Oh well, at least you'll be able a job as a sheep on the next remake of Animal Farm.

[kingwilly]

Sad that political correctness has replaced freedom of speech in America. Hopefully the expelled students will hire a good lawyer. Feee speech means nothing unless you can say what others do not want to hear, and this is a Government run school therefore subject to Constitutional restraints.

Weird that you think a University is not entitled to enforce action against such reprehensible behaviour.

[misskit]

Oklahoma Fraternity Member: Racist Chant Was 'Horrible Mistake'

DALLAS—
A former University of Oklahoma fraternity member who was shown in a video chanting a racial slur has issued an apology, as have the parents of a second student.

In a statement Tuesday, former OU student Parker Rice called the incident caught on video "a horrible mistake" and "a devastating lesson" for which he is "seeking guidance on how I can learn from this and make sure it never happens again."

"I am deeply sorry for what I did Saturday night," Rice said in a statement emailed to The Associated Press by his father. "It was wrong and reckless."

'Horrible mistake'

Meanwhile, the parents of another student seen on the video, Levi Pettit, released a statement that said, "he made a horrible mistake, and will live with the consequences forever."

The apologies came after OU President David Boren expelled the two students who appeared to be leading the chant. He did not release their names. Boren said others involved would face discipline.

Civil rights leaders applauded the university's prompt and decisive action.

"Racism is alive and well in America and we need ongoing, continuing dialogue to address these concerns," Garland Pruitt, president of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), told reporters.

The fraternity members' chant referenced lynching and indicated black students would never be admitted to OU's chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon.

Rice said in his statement that he withdrew from the university Monday. The statement from Pettit's parents did not address his status with the university.

Both Pettit and Rice are from Texas.

Rice said threatening calls to his family have prompted them to leave their North Dallas home. He said Saturday's incident was "likely was fueled by alcohol," but "that's not an excuse."

"Yes, the song was taught to us, but that, too, doesn't work as an explanation. It's more important to acknowledge what I did and what I didn't do. I didn't say 'no,' " his statement said.

Pettit's parents, Brody and Susan Pettit, said in a statement posted online that their son "is a good boy, but what we saw in those videos is disgusting." The Pettits apologized "to the entire African-American community (and) University of Oklahoma student body and administration."

'Not my brothers'

William Bruce James II, one of the Oklahoma fraternity's few black members, said the SAE chapter there had undergone a cultural change since he was a student there, from 2001 to 2005.

"The guys in that video are not my brothers," he told CNN. He said he never got an inkling of the offending song when he was a student.

Also Tuesday, Beauton Gilbow, the fraternity's "house mom," issued a statement that addressed a video from 2013 showing her repeating a racial slur as music plays in the background.

Gilbow said she was singing along to a song. She said she was "heartbroken" by the portrayal that she was racist but understood how the video must appear in the context of the week's events.

A "house mom" is a housing director who might oversee staff and finances at a sorority or fraternity house.

Oklahoma Fraternity Member: Racist Chant Was 'Horrible Mistake'

[panama hat]

The fraternity members' chant referenced lynching

Sad that political correctness has replaced freedom of speech in America

The fraternity members' chant referenced lynching

Hopefully the expelled students will hire a good lawyer

The fraternity members' chant referenced lynching

Feee speech means nothing unless you can say what others do not want to hear, and this is a Government run school therefore subject to Constitutional restraints.

The fraternity members' chant referenced lynching

Whic part of the chants did you miss?

Free speech? Hardly qualifies, as much as the likes of you and Blue would like it to

[blue]

"Racism is alive and well in America and we need ongoing, continuing dialogue to address these concerns," Garland Pruitt, president of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), told reporters.

got to love the irony...

[koman]

The way I understand this story is that a bunch of young students in a "frat" house were singing (or chanting) something which would likely be seen as distasteful by most people. Surprise...surprise. Just about everything that goes on in a frat house is probably distasteful to somebody or other.

Nobody was injured. Nobody was threatened. People say, sing and chant distasteful things all the time, so this seems like a lot of hype about nothing...and a massive over-reaction driven by the suffocating political correctness that has seeped into every aspect of life in some places.

Some silly song being chanted by (likely) drunk students in their private clubhouse is hardly a threat to society FFS.... it's not like they were doing it in the town square or in front of city hall, to incite or promote some big anti black movement that stalks the land....

Has Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson showed up for a photo-op yet?? Those two shit stirrers won't want to miss an opportunity like this.

[pickel]

^
Would you feel the same if it was a Muslim fraternity singing about beheading Jews? All in good fun innit?

[panama hat]

Would you feel the same if it was a Muslim fraternity singing about beheading Jews? All in good fun innit?

. . . or beheading Christians . . .

Anyway, that is a totally different kettle of gefillte fish, pickel.

I'm surprised at you, comparing good God-fearing white boys with hairy heathens who are only jealous of our way of life and the freedoms we have

[koman]

^ and ^^

Yes I would feel exactly the same. What people sing and chant behind the doors of their private settings is of no concern whatsoever to me. If they are doing it publicly and/or using it to promote violence or hatred, that is a totally different matter.

And you along with a few other over reactive apologists on here would be furiously defending them because in your minds only whites are capable of "racism"

All others are held up as eternal victims, so they have a right to vent their feelings and chant whatever the fuck they like.....

Why is this non-event a national news story anyway? Nothing happened....they sang some stupid student frat song in their private clubhouse.....and you would think they went out on a killing spree or something because some nosey, shit disturbing trouble maker recorded it and snitched......

Ya think those black folks never chant any racist anti-white shit......does anybody care? I don't.

[pickel]

And you along with a few other over reactive apologists on here would be furiously defending them because in your minds only whites are capable of "racism"

You're making things up again. Personally I don't think it should be illegal to do what they did. That said, they are a fraternity on university grounds and what they did goes against the ethics of the university. If they don't like it perhaps they should find another university to set up shop in.

[BobR]

The fraternity members' chant referenced lynching

Sad that political correctness has replaced freedom of speech in America

The fraternity members' chant referenced lynching

Hopefully the expelled students will hire a good lawyer

The fraternity members' chant referenced lynching

Feee speech means nothing unless you can say what others do not want to hear, and this is a Government run school therefore subject to Constitutional restraints.

The fraternity members' chant referenced lynching

Whic part of the chants did you miss?

Free speech? Hardly qualifies, as much as the likes of you and Blue would like it to

Politely and without supporting the morality or intelligence of these clowns:

Actually it does; the test for limitation of free speech is set forth by the United States Supreme Court in a case called Brandenburg v. Ohio. Free speech can only be limited if there is an IMMEDIATE incitement to violence.

To apply that to this case means if there were s a Blacks on the bus and they were chanting to encourage immediate violence, their speech would be illegal, but otherwise no. They have a good chance of winning an injunction against the school with competent counsel and a judge that respects our Constitution.

If it were a private school that would not be applicable but for a Government school it is.

Brandenburg v. Ohio - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case based on the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Court held that government cannot punish inflammatory speech unless that speech is directed to inciting, and is likely to incite, imminent lawless action.[1] Specifically, it struck down Ohio's criminal syndicalism statute, because that statute broadly prohibited the mere advocacy of violence.

America has not gone as far down the toilet as Europe yet with the ridiculous Orwellian concept of banning "hate speech."

With that said, they're really fucking idiots for singing anything so stupid, but once you start limiting free speech, American could end up like this place.

Politely, if you want to argue this, you need to read the First Amendment to the American Constitution and the legal decisions that have interpreted it, not what you think is right or wrong. This is about free speech, not about whether these idiots are right or wrong.

[koman]

And you along with a few other over reactive apologists on here would be furiously defending them because in your minds only whites are capable of "racism"

You're making things up again. Personally I don't think it should be illegal to do what they did. That said, they are a fraternity on university grounds and what they did goes against the ethics of the university. If they don't like it perhaps they should find another university to set up shop in.

Nobody is saying what they were doing was OK; but it's just frat house stuff. I'm quite sure a great deal of things go on in frat houses that would go against the University's rules and ethics. Generally speaking if it's not harming anyone and its confined to the privacy of the premises, it's ignored.

My point is the massive over reaction and sensationalized reporting on the matter. These students could have been quietly disciplined and warned to moderate their behaviour.

Instead they kick the alleged leaders out of the school and make a big story out of a silly non-event that effected nobody until the snitch went and reported them.

The effect this will have on those students involved could be far more damaging than is justified for having a bit of fun in their private club....even if it was distasteful.

Far worse things have happened in frat houses and more often than not, the result is a sternly written note from the dean. Chances are that they will then go on to graduate and become perfectly good citizens instead of being branded for life as some kind of latter day KKK dragons just for singing a silly song... it's ridiculus...

[VocalNeal]

If I understand correctly and they had been smart they could have kept their song , just not allowed Australians to join?

[BobR]

^ No I think Australia has gone to the "hate speech" form of mind control, I recall someone being sent to jail for racially insulting a Jew, which is rude but should not be a crime for any race.

^^ The University's rules and regulations are invalid if they are in conflict with Federal Law, whether that law be statutory or precedent.

[Jesus Jones]

I'm all for free speech. But if you are stupid enough to film or let someone film you and be caught out, then tough. The Uni has every right to expel, as a shop owner has the right to not serve.

[harrybarracuda]

^ No I think Australia has gone to the "hate speech" form of mind control, I recall someone being sent to jail for racially insulting a Jew, which is rude but should not be a crime for any race.

^^ The University's rules and regulations are invalid if they are in conflict with Federal Law, whether that law be statutory or precedent.

I look forward to seeing these pathetic frat boys (or rather their redneck daddies) suing the university for the right to sing about lynching fellow human beings based on their colour.

Honestly, the feeble minds of the right.....

[BobR]

^ Read the link to the Supreme Court case I cited then and tell me how a government run university can impose a penalty when there was no incitement to immediate violence.

It's got nothing to do with feeble minds or right or left thought, it's exactly the kind of ban on talking about violence the SCOTUS voided in the Brandenburg case.

Do you really want to live in a Country in which you must meet some correctness test just to have the right to speak? (Wait, TIT I already do).

^^ With these stupid smart phones, there is no privacy in groups any longer, you never know when some asshole will record/video you.

[Neverna]

Court held that government cannot punish inflammatory speech unless ...

In the USA, is a government university classed as the "government"?