The University of Oklahoma on Monday shut down a fraternity whose members chanted a racial slur and referenced lynching in a video, and the school president said he would consider expelling the students involved.
“You are disgraceful. You have violated all that we stand for,” the president, David Boren, said in a statement. “Real Sooners are not racist. Real Sooners are not bigots.”
Boren set a deadline of midnight Tuesday for the members of the fraternity, Sigma Alpha Epsilon, to move their belongings out of the fraternity house.
The video, recorded on a bus, showed members of the fraternity chanting a racial slur: “There will never be a (epithet) SAE!”
The school opened an investigation to determine who was involved. The president said he was consulting with school lawyers and would consider “all possible punishment,” including explusion.
“I’d be happy if they left, the ones who were involved,” Boren told reporters. “I know not every member of this fraternity was involved. But a large number were, a busload.”
He said school investigators have identified “one or two or three individuals” and ventured that some may decide to leave the school on their own. He said he would pay the bus fare himself.
Boren also appeared at a Monday morning rally with students to protest the video. He cautioned against making generalities about the entire Greek system, but he said he had asked a school vice president to conduct “a deep study into exactly what’s going on.”
The national president of SAE apologized and said that it had closed the chapter and would expel all the members involved.