How Far There Is To Go: Two Oklahoma Students Expelled for Racist Chant

For the past few decades, the University of Oklahoma has been seeking to raise its reputation from a local college in the Southwest, to a leading national institution. David Boren, school president and former state governor has made significant strides which involved offering generous scholarships and increasing the enrollment rate for National Merit scholars. However these efforts were jeopardized when members of Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE) fraternity, one of the largest fraternities in US, were caught on video singing a racist chant. The chant made light of lynching and stated that African-American students would never be allowed into the fraternity.

The chant, set to the popular children’s song, “If You’re Happy and You Know It”, includes lyrics such as, “There will never be a n***** in SAE. You can hang him from a tree, but he can never sign with me.”

Needless to say, the video reopened painful wounds of the state’s history with racial violence. Boren quickly severed ties with the fraternity and expelled two students that appeared to be the ring leaders.

However, many agree that this does not really address the discrimination issues that the African-Americans students admit to dealing with on an average school day. Students stated that these prejudices were passed down for generations and there is no clear long-term solution.  It is a common notion that racism is practically eradicated in young people due to the increased effort to enforce equality and acceptance principles in public education, but evidently, it is just not true.

Dr. JeffriAnne Wilder, an associate sociology professor at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville— a city with a local high school that was previously named after a Ku Klux Klan leader— stated the incident is a reminder of how far the Oklahoma state and the country still has to go in dealing with racial issues.

“It’s saddening and unfortunate that just a few days ago, we were commemorating Selma,” Wilder said. “We have to pause and on one hand, we can look back and see how far we’ve gone and on the other hand, how far we have to go.”