CLOSE Skip in Skip x Embed x Share The president of the University of Oklahoma announced he's severing ties with the local chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon after several members of the fraternity were caught on camera singing a racist song. VPC 
 
 Workers remove the letters from the Sigma Alpha Epsilon house at the University of Oklahoma on Monday, March. 9, 2015, in Norman, Okla. (Photo: Nick Oxford, AP) 
 
 The Greek letters have been removed from the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity house and the football team protested instead of practicing as fallout continued from an SAE video of members chanting racist remarks.at the University of Oklahoma. 
 
 School President David Boren, who joined hundreds of students at the Norman campus in a Monday protest, has already severed ties with the fraternity and promised a thorough investigation that could result in expulsion of some students from the school. 
 
 Fraternity members have until Tuesday night to clear out of the fraternity house. 
 
 "To those who have misused their free speech in such a reprehensible way, I have a message for you. You are disgraceful," Boren tweeted after the protest. "You have violated all that we stand for. You should not have the privilege of calling yourself 'Sooners.'" 
 
 Boren added that the school will become "an example to the entire country of how to deal with this issue. There must be zero tolerance for racism everywhere in our nation." 
 
 At a news conference later Monday, Boren said the school will review what actions it could take against individual students, particularly "some of those who took leading roles in orchestrating the chant." 
 
 The Oklahoma football team walked in protest, joined by coach Bob Stoops and the athletic director, Joe Castiglione. 
 
 White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said the efforts by the university and the national fraternity to repudiate the racist comments were "an appropriate step." 
 
 (Photo: Nick Oxford, AP) 
 
 Boren said fraternity members have until midnight Tuesday to remove their belongings from the fraternity house. He said the fraternity was "not totally forthcoming," and he was still trying to find out who was on the bus so the school could consider disciplinary actions. 
 
 He said the university's legal staff was exploring whether the students who initiated and encouraged the chant may have violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits racial discrimination. 
 
 "We are also going to look at any individual perpetrators, particularly those that we think took a lead in this kind of activity," Boren said. 
 
 The video was posted online Sunday by Unheard, a black student group at OU. The fraternity's national headquarters said Sunday night that an investigation confirmed that it was local SAE members on the video chanting racial slurs against blacks and indicating that blacks would never be admitted to the fraternity's chapter in Norman. The chant also makes reference to lynching. 
 
 The fraternity's national organization issued a statement saying the SAE chapter at the school has been closed and its members suspended from the national organization. SAE apologized for the video and said it did not reflect the views of its 15,000 members nationwide. 
 
 CLOSE Skip in Skip x Embed x Share Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity closed its University of Oklahoma chapter after a video surfaced online showing members participating in a racist chant. The black student group that released the video says their source wants to remain anonymous. VPC 
 
 It looks like the SAE house has been vandalized. One side of the house reads something like "tear it down." @OUDailypic.twitter.com/dZebbDQT2Y — Dana Branham (@danabranham) March 9, 2015 
 
 "We are disgusted that any member would act in such a way," the statement said. "Furthermore, we are embarrassed by this video and offer our empathy not only to anyone outside the organization who is offended but also to our brothers who come from a wide range of backgrounds, cultures and ethnicities." 
 
 NBC News reported that a campus sorority, Delta Delta Delta, was under investigation for possible involvement of some of its members in the chanting seen in the video. At least one young woman can be seen in the video. The national office of the sorority said it was cooperating with the investigation. 
 
 On Monday, the fraternity building had been vandalized with graffiti. On one side of the building, in huge letters, was written "Tear it D." Two unidentified chapter members told The Oklahoma Daily, the student newspaper, that they had received death threats. 
 
 Pictures on social media showed workers removing from the building's exterior the Greek letters of the fraternity's name. 
 
 Updated statement attached. - DBo pic.twitter.com/xIvnd9otgu — David Boren (@President_Boren) March 9, 2015 
 
 Immediately after the video was posted, an outpouring of tweets echoed the sentence "Racism is alive at the University of Oklahoma." 
 
 Kendall Brown of Oklahoma City tweeted that he was "glad so many are speaking out against SAE's OU chapter-but the convo must go further. The racism is institutional, the chant isn't new." 
 
 The national fraternity's decision to close came on the same day thousands of people gathered in Selma, Ala., to mark the 50th anniversary of "Bloody Sunday," a day in 1965 when peaceful protesters marching for voting rights were beaten by police. 
 
 OU is a state school with 30,000 students, two-thirds of them undergraduates. Almost two-thirds of the student body is white, about 5% is black and the rest other minority groups. Norman, a university town and the state's third-largest city, has a population of about 120,000 people. 
 
 Contributing: Kim Hjelmgaard in London, William M. Welch in Los Angeles; Associated Press 
 
 
 
 
 
 Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1BXGJ6r ||||| David Boren says Sigma Alpha Epsilon would not be welcome on campus after video emerged of fraternity members chanting racial slurs against black people 
 
 Members of one of the largest fraternity groups in the US were condemned on Monday by the the University of Oklahoma president, David Boren, after students were caught hurling racist epithets towards black Americans in a video published online. 
 
 Boren, a former US senator who also served as the state’s governor, called the students’ behaviour sickening, and said Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE) would not be welcome on the University of Oklahoma campus again. 
 
 University of Oklahoma fraternity closed and members suspended over racist video Read more 
 
 “This is not who we are,” said Boren in a Monday press conference. “Those students will be out of that house by midnight tomorrow night, the house will be closed, and as far as I’m concerned it won’t be back – at least not as long as I’m president of the university.” 
 
 The university is conducting an investigation into the incident and could expel students involved. It has revoked the chapter’s permission to operate on campus. 
 
 “Would I be happy if they left the university, and were no longer our students? Yes, I’d be happy,” said Boren. “We don’t have room for racism and bigots at this university.” 
 
 SAE representatives said the footage, apparently featuring Oklahoma students chanting about lynching and using racist epithets against black people, left it embarrassed and disgusted. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest Warning: this video contains graphic language 
 
 “We apologise for the unacceptable and racist behaviour of the individuals in the video, and we are disgusted that any member would act in such a way,” the SAE leadership said in a statement. 
 
 “We have more than 15,000 collegiate members across the nation, and this incident should not reflect on other brothers because this type of hateful action is not what Sigma Alpha Epsilon stands for.” 
 
 The 10-second video was first posted online on Sunday by an OU black student group, Unheard, and first reported by the Oklahoma Daily, a student newspaper. It showed people on a bus chanting in unison and using offensive language in reference to African Americans, vowing to never admit any into the fraternity. The chant also made light of lynchings. 
 
 “This video contains language that is offensive, disrespectful, and unacceptable,” Unheard said in a statement posted with the video. “Even after 50 years after the events that occurred in Selma, Alabama, we still have a reason to march. We as a people have indeed come a long way, but yet still have so far to go.” 
 
 Unheard, which describes itself as an alliance of black students from OU focusing on a lack of representation and support on campus, said it would hold a demonstration on campus on Monday morning. Boren later said a diverse “cross section” of the university attended the rally. 
 
 The SAE leadership determined that members of its Kappa chapter at the University of Oklahoma were involved in the events shown in the video. 
 
 “I was not only shocked and disappointed but disgusted by the outright display of racism displayed in the video,” Brad Cohen, the fraternity’s national president, said in the organisation’s statement, noting that “SAE is a diverse organisation, and we have zero tolerance for racism.” 
 
 On Twitter, Cohen added that the students involved in the video would be “dealt with”. 
 
 The national SAE leadership said it hoped to be able to re-establish the Oklahoma Kappa chapter “at some point in the future”.
– Two University of Oklahoma students accused of leading the racist chant that emerged on video this week now aren't just homeless, they're school-less. University President David Boren announced today that the two unidentified students have been expelled, reports KOCO.com. "I have emphasized that there is zero tolerance for this kind of threatening racist behavior at the University of Oklahoma," he said. "I hope that the entire nation will join us in having zero tolerance of such racism when it raises its ugly head in other situations across our country." The expulsions follow the closing of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon frat, meaning members have until tonight to clear the frat house. The students can appeal Boren's decision, and a story in the Oklahoma Daily, the campus newspaper, suggest they might have a case if they decide to do so on freedom-of-speech grounds. “If the extent of it is what we see in those 11 seconds of video, I don’t see a constitutional basis for [expulsion],” the executive director of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education tells the newspaper. The frat's house mother has a video problem of her own.