Video threatens university’s progress

Associated Press

NORMAN, Okla.

Almost a generation ago, the University of Oklahoma set out to raise its profile, seeking to build a regional school that served mostly students from the Southwest into a leading institution that attracted top scholars.

President David Boren made striking progress, achieving a reputation that now extends well beyond the Sooners football team that once defined the campus. But those improvements seem in peril after members of a fraternity were caught on video chanting a racial slur. The chant referenced lynching and indicated black students would never be admitted to OU’s chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon.

Boren, a former Oklahoma governor and U.S. senator, acted swiftly. He immediately severed ties with the fraternity and ordered members to vacate their house. On Tuesday, he expelled the two students who appeared to be leading the chant and promised others involved would face discipline.

“I have emphasized that there is zero tolerance for this kind of threatening racist behavior at the University of Oklahoma,” Boren said in a statement.

Since taking the helm of the state’s flagship university more than 20 years ago, Boren has made ambitious efforts to recruit top students and faculty.

The school offers generous scholarships to all National Merit scholars and enrolls more of them than any other public university in the nation. It has produced 29 Rhodes scholars.

The video was taken on a bus going to a Founder’s Day event at a country club. The person who recorded it has cooperated with the investigation, Boren said Tuesday.

Also Tuesday, one fraternity member seen on the video and parents of another issued apologies.

In a statement emailed by his father, Parker Rice said the incident “likely was fueled by alcohol,” but “that’s not an excuse.” He said he was “deeply sorry” for the performance, calling it “wrong and reckless,” “a horrible mistake” and “a devastating lesson” for which he is “seeking guidance.”

He said he withdrew from the university Monday and that threatening calls to his family prompted them to leave their home.

The parents of Levi Pettit posted a statement online saying they were shocked by their son’s actions, that he “made a horrible mistake, and will live with the consequences forever.”

Also Tuesday, Beauton Gilbow, the fraternity’s house mother, issued a statement that addressed a second online video from 2013 that had surfaced, showing her repeating a racial slur against blacks as music plays in the background. Gilbow said she was singing along to a song. She said she was “heartbroken” by the portrayal that she was racist but understood how the video must appear in the context of the week’s events.

Some students at OU, particularly African-Americans, who make up about 5 percent of the campus population, said that a mostly segregated fraternity and sorority system is at least partially to blame for creating an environment where racism can thrive.