When a disgusting video came to light showing members of the University of Oklahoma’s chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity singing a song in which they vowed that no “n-words” would ever be allowed among their number, university president David Boren struck fast and hard. In the last 48 hours, he has torn up the fraternity’s charter, evicted its members from their house, and vowed that SAE won’t be allowed to return to OU any time soon.
However, one of Boren’s moves initially seemed questionable. This afternoon, he summarily expelled two students who are believed to have been the ringleaders in the chant. KWTV in Oklahoma City obtained a copy of the letter, which says that their actions created “a hostile educational environment for others.” As abhorrent as their actions were, it would seem that there were other ways Boren could have gone about punishing the ringleaders. Make them issue a public apology, community service, ban them from ever representing OU again (i. e., on sports teams, debate teams, chorus, etc.). But expelling them potentially raised First Amendment issues. Like all state-supported universities, OU is legally an arm of the state government, so for obvious reasons it doesn’t have a good deal of latitude to punish students just for things they may say.
Unless I’m very wrong, the only plausible grounds for expulsion at this point would have been if the video had been uploaded to Facebook, Instagram or another social media outlet before a member of Unheard, the student organization that broke this story, got its hands on it. Then you could argue that no reasonable person could conclude that the video was anything other than intimidating. That debate, however, may have been mooted when both boys issued apologies for their actions. At a meeting of OU’s Board of Regents, Boren said that the video was taken by a girl who was on the bus as one of the brothers’ dates. The bus was on the way to a party at an Oklahoma City golf club. Boren says that the girl is cooperating with the investigation.
SAE’s national headquarters wasted no time in shuttering the chapter and suspending all of its members, and has promised that all responsible for this video could face permanent banishment from the fraternity. However, Boren didn’t think that went far enough. He ordered the house boarded up–and said that it will stay boarded up for awhile, since SAE won’t return to OU at least as long as he is president.
If I had been Boren, I wouldn’t have even considered any requests for reinstatement until the fall of 2019 at the earliest. The fact that anyone could even think something like this was a good idea is a sign that there is an unacceptable culture in that chapter–one that has to be cleaned out root and branch. By the fall of 2019, anyone who was a member will likely be gone, and we can be 99.99 percent sure that by then, those responsible for creating the racist culture at that chapter won’t be part of any new chapter. The expulsions aside, so far OU has gotten this absolutely right.
