Students expelled over racist chant
Almost a generation ago, the University of Oklahoma set out to raise its profile, seeking to build a regional school that served mostly students from the southwest United States into a leading institution that attracted top scholars.
President David Boren made striking progress, achieving a reputation that now extends well beyond the Sooners football team that once defined the campus. But those improvements seem in peril after members of a fraternity were caught on video making a racist chant that referenced lynching and indicated black students would never be admitted to OU’s chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon.
Boren, a former Oklahoma governor and U. S. senator with 20 years at the helm of the state’s flagship university, acted swiftly. He immediately severed ties with the fraternity and ordered members to vacate their house. On Tuesday, he expelled the two students who appeared to be leading the chant for creating a hostile educational environment and promised others involved would face disciplinary action.
“I have emphasized that there is zero tolerance for this kind of threatening racist behaviour at the University of Oklahoma,” Boren said in a statement.
But some students at OU, particularly African- Americans who make up about five per cent of the campus population, said racism is alive and well and that a mostly segregated fraternity and sorority system is at least partially to blame for creating an environment where racism can thrive.
“It ’s t oo s egregated,” sa i d Markeshia Lyon, a junior from Oklahoma City who i s black. “That’s something that’s passed down, and that’s something that needs to change.”
Lyon recalled trying to attend a fraternity party her freshman year with several friends, all of whom were African- American, and being told they were not welcome.
“It was very hurtful,” she said. “I would never set foot on that street again.”
But fraternity members say chapters at Oklahoma have taken steps to diversify, recruiting more African- American, Asian and Hispanic students.
“We’ve always fostered a community where anyone who is qualified can enter. We don’t look at your race,” said Jordan Bell, an AfricanAmerican senior from Washington, D. C., who joined a mostly white fraternity. He said more than 10 per cent of the roughly 100 members of his Phi Kappa Psi fraternity now are African- American.
Bell said some fraternities and sororities are more diverse than others, and Boren acknowledged at a news conference Monday that more needs to be done to attract minority students to the university and the fraternity- sorority system.
“Some are doing quite well. They’re making progress,” Boren said. “Others are still locked in the past, and they need to realize that it enriches the experience and the friendships that are involved if they become more diverse as organizations.”
The university has succeeded in breaking down some racial barriers, mainly through its athletics programs, which is why the video reopens old wounds.
Running back Prentice Gautt, for example, became the first black football player at the school in the late 1950s, long before many universities had integrated collegiate athletics. Yet today, members of the school’s predominantly black football and basketball programs play before overwhelmingly white crowds.
While the school made strides on the playing field, it seemed to be losing ground elsewhere. The enrolment of black students declined.