Oklahoma SAE case raises questions of due process

A racist chant, a de-chartered fraternity, two expulsions and a national uproar: Last week, the University of Oklahoma and issues of race were thrust into the national spotlight after members of its Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity were captured on video singing a hateful and racist chant. The nine-second video showed members of the fraternity chanting a song steeped in racial slurs, which included a reference to lynching and boasts that the fraternity would never admit a black member. The administrative response was quick and decisive. Within hours of the video’s release, the university’s president, David L. Boren, a former U.S. senator, shut down the campus chapter, denouncing the students as “disgraceful,” and, a day later, expelled the two students who had led the chant.

The swift expulsions are unconventional and risky, especially when compared to the measured responses many institutions legislate to avoid scandal. Yet, in many ways, the response was the safer gambit in a lose-lose situation. Had the university stayed any immediate response, it would have appeared to be sanctioning the students’ actions and opened itself to vociferous public backlash. If it responded quickly and decisively, as it did, the university would claim a moral high ground. Yet, in doing so, it would leave itself vulnerable to legal consequences down the road. Caught between two unfavorable outcomes, Boren’s decision to respond immediately was the lesser of two evils and sent a strong message about its intolerance of such hateful speech.

Yet, whereas the university’s move to immediately expel the two students may be justifiable, the process by which the decision was made is problematic and troubling. The veracity of the video and the hatefulness of its contents are inexcusable. Yet, all students should have the right to present their side of the story in a judicial process that rigorously examines evidence and considers all relevant factors, no matter how deplorable. In the absence of a direct mandate granting the university president power to bypass judicial processes and instead take commensurate action against students, the swift decision to expel denied them the proper channels of due process. Suspending the students while an investigation and case were prepared would have been a more judicious solution. Though the end result may be morally justifiable, the means by which it was wrought was procedurally problematic.

The importance of due process for students is implicated even further in the debate over the freedom of speech. While we are no lawyers and admittedly lack the requisite legal basis, a foray into court and case precedence suggests that SAE’s racist speech, no matter how deplorable, was a legally permissible exercise of their rights to free speech. In 2001, for example, Auburn University’s president, William F. Walker, indefinitely suspended 15 students for wearing Ku Klux Klan uniforms and blackface to fraternity parties. An Alabama judge later ordered him to reinstate most of the students, citing their acts as free speech.

Legality aside, the content and message propounded in the song are reprehensible and unacceptable. Lynching and dehumanizing language perpetuates a lack of respect toward black individuals and other minorities that must be halted and reversed. Though we may have the right to free speech, we must be cognizant of the impact of our words, acts and biases on those around us. After the video’s release, dozens of students marched across the University of Oklahoma campus to the fraternity’s house before it was closed. Such a show of solidarity against racist and hateful behavior is one we should all embody.