University of Oklahoma Expels Two Students After Racist Frat Video Released

The University of Oklahoma has expelled two students in the wake of a video being released that shows members of a school fraternity participating in a racist chant.

The video, released over the weekend online, shows members of the fraternity Sigma Alpha Epsilon participating in a chant while riding a bus to a fraternity event. The chant includes a racist slur and references lynching, with participants singing that African American students will never be allowed in their fraternity.

The video drew strong criticism from school officials and the student body alike, and by Monday the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity was banned from the University of Oklahoma.

University President David Boren announced the expulsion of the two students leading the chant in the video on Tuesday. Boren said in a statement that the students were expelled for creating a "hostile learning environment" for fellow students.

"I hope that students involved in this incident will learn from this experience and realize that it is wrong to use words to hurt, threaten, and exclude other people," he said.

According to CNN, the Greek letters adorning the fraternity house for Sigma Alpha Epsilon have already been removed, and the house's doors and windows will be shuttered by Tuesday evening.

Boren told CNN that while the university can ban the fraternity from its campus, punishing individual students may prove more difficult.

"Well, legally, our concern is we have to demonstrate exactly how the educational experience of our students was threatened or disrupted by their actions," he said, "and it really has to focus on the students on the bus. Did the other students have their educational experience disrupted?"