March 17, 2015
Top News Today
SAE members in Oklahoma have secured the services of high profile attorney Stephen Jones to represent their interests. Jones, best known for serving as Timothy McVeigh’s lead defense attorney during the Oklahoma City Bombing trial, said he believes the university’s response to the video was a “premature rush to judgement,” and one that implicitly painted all members of the fraternity “with a tar brush” as bigots or racists. Jones believes the university should have taken a more “measured” response against only the individuals responsible for the racist chants, instead of allowing the actions of a few to punish the entire chapter with an expulsion from campus.
Some legal experts believe the expelled students may have a good legal case against the college on First Amendment grounds. Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the law school at the University of California at Irvine said “the students could bring a suit based on the First Amendment challenging their expulsion. Based on what we know from the media, I think they would have an excellent chance of succeeding.”
SAE has a long history of southern roots and tones of covert racism. According to its own website, “Sigma Alpha Epsilon is the only national fraternity founded in the antebellum South,” adding that the frat was “founded in a time of intense sectional feeling” and that it initially “confined its growth to the southern states.” In fact, out of approx. 400 members during the Civil War era, 369 SAE members fought in the Confederate army, while only 7 fought for the union.
Over the years, a number of recorded instances of SAE chapters engaging in racist practices have surfaced, raising the question of whether the national office has looked the other way and allowed such behavior to continue unchecked.
– The Clemson University chapter was suspended last December after hosting a “Cripmas” party where white students dressed to resemble mostly black street gangs.
– In 2013, the frat’s Washington University in St. Louis chapter was suspended after pledges were instructed to sing racial slurs to African-American students.
– In 1992 at Texas A&M University, SAE staged a “Jungle Party” where members wore Afros and bone jewelry and chased each other with spears. They were fined $1,000 and placed on social probation.
– In 1989 at Arizona State University, white members of SAE harassed a group of black students walking by their house, spitting at them and shouting racial epithets.
– At the University of Cincinnati, students at the SAE chapter hosted a Martin Luther King ”trash party” in 1981 and 1982 to coincide with the holiday celebrating the slain civil rights leader. Invitees were asked to bring “KKK white hoods,” food stamps, a copy of Roots, a spear, “your father – IF you know who he is” or to come in blackface.
Last week, a video was uncovered of the SAE house mom at the U of Oklahoma apparently laughing into a camera phone while repeating “nig*a” several times in a row. Also, one former SAE member, who asked for anonymity out of concerns for his safety, said he had heard brothers use the same racist song recorded on video while he was a pledge in a Texas chapter a decade ago. At least 2 additional students made similar claims online and an Oklahoma student who attended an SAE event 2 years ago told NBC News she had heard the chant as well.
Is the SAE incident at the University of Oklahoma merely an isolated incident where 2 rogue students acted alone and made the whole house come crumbling down, or is racism a much larger and ignored problem throughout the entire SAE fraternity system?
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including evidence of more racist activity from the
Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity, as they prepare to sue U of Oklahoma.
The examples you listed DJ are disgusting and I think they need to investigate the whole fraternity. It looks like they have a history of being racist with nobody calling them on it. These kids in the video didn't make that song up themselves because it was taught to them. It's probably been around for years and a lot of them know it so they sang it. Plus if they're spitting on black people and having parties for people to bring food stamps, this is a problem. I bet if they did an investigation of the entire organization including other chapters they'd uncover a whole lot more than they expect.