NORMAN, Okla., March 9 (UPI) — A University of Oklahoma fraternity has closed after some of its members were purportedly caught on video singing a racist chant.
Sigma Alpha Epsilon’s national president, Brad Cohen, said Sunday that the organization had “zero tolerance for racism or any bad behavior.”
“When we learned about this incident, I called an immediate board meeting, and we determined with no mental reservation whatsoever that this chapter needed to be closed immediately,” Cohen said.
The video, which was first published by the university’s student newspaper, The Oklahoma Daily, features men and women singing a chant about how black people will “never” be allowed to pledge the fraternity.
“There will never be a n****r in SAE,” they appear to sing.
The chant also references lynching.
The video was uploaded to YouTube by a student group called UnHeard.
“We do not live in a post-racial America,” the group said in a statement. “Even 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.”
University of Oklahoma President David Boren said that school officials are investigating the video.
“If the video is indeed of OU students, this behavior will not be tolerated and is contrary to all of our values,” he tweeted.
The fraternity’s campus headquarters was reportedly been vandalized after the video surfaced. One side of the frat house now reads, “tear it down.”