University of Oklahoma expels two leaders for racist singing

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[March 11, 2015]  By Heide Brandes
 
 OKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) - The University of Oklahoma has expelled two students for playing a leadership role in singing a racist song at a fraternity-linked event that was captured on video and viewed worldwide, the school's president said on Tuesday.

The two students, who have not officially been identified, were connected to a Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity event. The video, posted on Sunday, prompted the university to shut down the fraternity's house on campus and force members to vacate it by midnight on Tuesday.

"There is zero tolerance for this kind of threatening racist behavior at the University of Oklahoma," President David Boren said in a post on social media website Twitter.

The 10-second video was shot on a bus chartered for a date night by the fraternity. Students were seen and heard chanting in unison, using offensive language referring to blacks and vowing never to admit them to the fraternity.

The Dallas Morning News identified the two students as Levi Pettit, 20, and Parker Rice, 19. Pettit's parents and Rice issued apologies on Tuesday.

"It was wrong and reckless," Rice told the paper in a written statement. "For me, this is a devastating lesson, and I am seeking guidance on how I can learn from this."

The university said more people could face punishment, depending on the outcome of its probe.

A sorority that may have been involved in the date night, the Tri Delta group, said it was cooperating with the investigation. Its house on campus has not faced any sanctions.

The controversy played out on social media, with an online fundraising campaign launched for a black cook who lost his job because of the closure.

Another video purportedly showed the fraternity's white house mother using a racial slur.

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William Bruce James II, one of the Oklahoma fraternity's few black members, said the SAE chapter there had undergone a cultural change since he was a student there, from 2001 to 2005.

"The guys in that video are not my brothers," he told CNN. He said he never got an inkling of the offending song when he was a student.

Civil rights leaders applauded the university's prompt and decisive action.

"Racism is alive and well in America and we need ongoing, continuing dialogue to address these concerns," Garland Pruitt, president of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, told reporters.

(Additional reporting by Suzannah Gonzales in Chicago and Lisa Maria Garza in Dallas; Writing by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst, Bill Trott, Susan Heavey, Matthew Lewis and Clarence Fernandez)

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