OU Expels SAE Bigots. Did They Miss An Opportunity For Change?

After the national Sigma Alpha Epsilon administration shut down University of Oklahoma's 104-year-old chapter on Sunday and suspended all of its members, University President David Boren held a press conference Monday but stopped short of naming any of the students or suspending them. He said that all members of the chapter had to clear out of the Norman, Okla., frat house by midnight on Monday and find new places to live without the university's help.

 "We don’t provide student services for bigots," Boren said in a Monday press conference. (nydailynews.com)
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/new-video-shows-ou-sae-house-mom-racist-slurs-article-1.2143662

Someone might need to meet with Mr. Boren and let him know that even expelling a bigot or dissolving a fraternity of bigots is not a method of eliminating racism.  When interviewed, Boren admitted that the campus had problems 20 years ago when he first got there, but OU has not expelled anyone in 20 years over race issues. In his eyes, the lack of expulsions means the absence of racism in some measure.  He admits racial problems exist in his school just as they do in America, but OU Boren says "We are refusing to be defined by this incident".

So let me add this up.  Without the benefit of multiple expulsions to send the message of non-tolerance, Boren thinks he was able to clean up a school that he admits had a problem only 20 years ago? How could bigotry just go away?  Was SAE and the bigotry of its OU chapter just an aberration or the inevitable result of bottled up bigotry?  Stuff done in the dark, so to speak? Will expelling these students do anything more than silence the rest of the bigots on campus- no matter the race?  Is there a chance that some black student on campus has a Facebook account with a few edgy statements of race that they need to scrub away real quick, and is that different than the organizational bigotry of SAE, OU?


Race remains an issue stuck on the treadmill because no one understands how to touch the plug and stop the spinning without getting shocked.  Very little can be gained from admitting that crackers or niggers irritate you for reason's you can't fully explain, so no one tries.  Boren has an opportunity to start a national conversation on race that would be appropriately housed in an institution of higher learning.  Instead, he will likely take the expulsion way out, the way that keeps him far away from that supercharged treadmill that spins beyond our power to control. 

The stupidity of the SAE behavior was upsetting to black students of OU, but none were shocked by it since black students spend more time running the treadmill of race than most at OU, so they've become numb to the electricity of bigotry at OU. Boren admitted  that members of the Black Student association are working with the university through a list of racial grievances that they have, but you would be hard pressed to find any evidence of the black student voice on the OU website, which seems to monitor the links and tweets from every student organization on campus (probably for recruiting and enrollment purposes).

OU might be great at explaining the importance of this uncomfortable conversation on race, but they are not starting it any better than any of us if they simply kick the bigots out of school. Make them stay and face the music and see if the rest of the bigots on campus will come out of hiding to join in the conversation.