Off the wire
• Urgent: "It would've been better" to use two separate devices for personal, work email accounts: Clinton  • Urgent: Crude prices plummet as U.S. dollar surges  • Spanish stock market falls 1.38 pct, closes at 10,902 points  • Chinese organization donates vehicle to Kenyan wildlife conservancy  • Stronger dollar drags down LME base metals on Tuesday  • Irish PM says job creation remains top priority for gov't  • Jihadist Group dismantled in Spanish enclave of Ceuta  • FTSE 100 suffers biggest fall of the year on Tuesday  • 1st LD Writethru: Gold down on strong dollar, Fed rate hike fears  • Kenya to set up center to tackle proliferation of small arms  
You are here: 　 Home

University of Oklahoma expels two students over racist video

Xinhua, March 11, 2015 Adjust font size:

Two students from the University of Oklahoma were expelled Tuesday for their alleged "leadership" role in a racist chant captured on video during a fraternity event, said head of the university.

University President David Boren said in a statement via Twitter that the two students, "identified as playing a leadership role in the singing of a racist chant," were dismissed for creating a "hostile learning environment for others."

The students' names have not been released. Boren said the university will continue to investigate all of the students engaged in the singing of the chant. Once their identities are confirmed, they will also be subject to disciplinary action, he said.

"I have emphasized that there is zero tolerance for this kind of threatening racist behavior at the University of Oklahoma," the president wrote in the statement.

The controversy went viral after a 10-second video was posted online Sunday, which shows members of the school's chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon, a college fraternity, chanting on a bus a song whose lyrics included racial slurs, referred to lynching, and indicated African-American students would never be admitted to the fraternity.

The university's president as well as the fraternity's national headquarters in Illinois shut the chapter after the video was released, and university officials severed all ties to it on Monday.

The University of Oklahoma, located in the southern Oklahoma City suburb of Norman, has about 27,000 students, about 5 percent of whom are African-Americans. Enditem