Oklahoma Frat Members Learned Racist Chant On National Fraternity Cruise

A fraternity shut down its chapter at the University of Oklahoma after a video surfaced that allegedly showed frat members chanting a racial slur and making a reference to lynching.
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Updated March 28 11:17 a.m.

Members of the University of Oklahoma’s Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity learned the racist chant that got it kicked off campus at a leadership event sponsored by the national fraternity, President David Boren said Friday.

Boren said in a news conference that the the school’s investigation into the local SAE chapter found frat members learned the chant four years ago during a leadership cruise sponsored by the fraternity’s national organization. Local chapter members who attended that event then brought the chant back to OU, where they incorporated it into their pledging process, Boren said.

The OU president also read out a letter he sent to the national SAE organization seeking information as to whether the fraternity has looked into how widespread the chant was among its various local chapters.

“While there is no indication that the chant was part of the formal teaching of the national organization, it does appear that the chant was widely known and informally shared amongst members on the leadership cruise,” Boren wrote in the letter.

Boren later said he thought there might be some “shared responsibility” for the chant between members of the local chapter and the national SAE organization. But when a reporter asked him whether a member of the national fraternity taught the chant to the local frat members, Boren said “No, I don’t think so.”

Two members of the local chapter who were identified as leading the chant were expelled earlier this month. Boren said 25 other members of the fraternity have been ordered to do community service and undergo sensitivity training.

When TPM called SAE’s national organization for comment, a voicemail message said the fraternity’s spokesman was traveling on business. The organization released a statement later Friday confirming that the frat members “likely” learned the chant while on the leadership cruise.

SAE executive director, Blaine Ayers, said in the statement that the national organization’s internal investigation reached conclusions similar to what OU’s probe found. But their investigation has turned up “no evidence” yet that the chant was widely shared among the broader national organization, Ayers said.

“We remain committed to identifying and rooting out racist behavior from
SAE, and we are actively investigating all of our local organizations to
determine whether there are issues in any other location,” Ayers said in the statment. “We intend to conduct a thorough and complete investigation, and this will take time. However, we will share the results of our investigation when it is complete.”

This post has been updated.

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