Two Oklahoma students expelled over racist chants

NORMAN, OKLA.— The University of Oklahoma’s president expelled two students Tuesday after he said they were identified as leaders of a racist chant captured on video during a fraternity event.

University president David Boren said in a statement the two students were dismissed for creating a “hostile learning environment for others.” Their names were not released.

The video posted online shows several people on a bus participating in a chant that included a racial slur, referred to lynching and indicated black students would never be admitted to the university’s chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon. A fraternity is an organization of male college students.

Boren acted swiftly after the video surfaced late Sunday, severing ties with the fraternity and ordering its house shuttered Monday and announcing the expulsions Tuesday.

“I hope that students involved in this incident will learn from this experience and realize that it is wrong to use words to hurt, threaten, and exclude other people,” he said.

Boren said the university is working to identify other students involved in the chant, who may also face discipline.

Windows at the fraternity were boarded up and moving vans were parked outside Tuesday. Members have until midnight to remove their belongings. The Greek letters have already been removed from the side of the sprawling brick house on a street lined with fraternity and sorority houses just west of the centre of campus.

Markeshia Lyon, a junior from Oklahoma City and one of about 1,400 black students who attend the university’s Norman location, said the mostly segregated fraternity culture on campus is partly to blame for creating an environment where racism can thrive.