The president of the University of Oklahoma’s Black Student Association told NBC News on Tuesday that he wasn’t surprised by a video showing fraternity members chanting a racial slur.
The school expelled two students whom university leadership said had played leadership roles in the episode, and it shut down its chapter of the fraternity, Sigma Alpha Epsilon.
Black Student Association president Isaac Hill told NBC News' Gabe Gutierrez that when he first saw the video, which began to circulate Sunday night, “it wasn’t really a shock initially.” Hill said that he felt “disappointment in the fact that this was still going on in 2015.”
Hill said he is accustomed to “racial tension and racial divide,” but he wished he weren’t. “When you see this, these are the children of these people that are still harboring these views of the past that need to stay in the past,” he said.
But seeing the video also left Hill with a sense of “encouragement and empowerment,” he said, because someone chose to record the racist activity and “share it with the world because they felt it was wrong.”
IN-DEPTH
- University of Oklahoma Expels Two Students Tied to Racist Chant Video
- University of Oklahoma Boots Sigma Alpha Epsilon After Racist Chant Video
- University of Oklahoma SAE Fraternity Closed After Racist Video