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Fraternity Probe Broadens Amid More Claims of Racism

Published

11 years ago

March 13, 2015

Oklahoma head coach Bob Stoops, center, answers a question for reposters following a demonstration by the Oklahoma football team against racism in Norman, Okla., Thursday, March 12, 2015. Looking on, from left, are players Ty Darlington, Trevor Knight, Zack Sanchez and Charles Tapper. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

SEAN MURPHY, Associated Press
TERESA CRAWFORD, Associated Press

NORMAN, Okla. (AP) — Investigations into racism at Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity chapters have extended to college campuses in Louisiana and Texas, the organization said Thursday, after its national office received word that members in those places had direct knowledge of a racist chant caught on video in Oklahoma last weekend.

Spokesman Brandon Weghorst said the chapter at the University of Texas at Austin was being “fully cooperative” and that a probe at Louisiana Tech in Ruston was in its early stages. He said no new allegations had been substantiated.

“We had no idea of this type of behavior was going on underground,” Weghorst said Thursday. “This is the type of stuff (the chant), it goes underground and it goes under the radar.

“It’s dangerous because — if we don’t know about it, we can’t stop it.”

A nine-second video recorded last weekend caught members of the fraternity’s University of Oklahoma chapter singing a song that used a derogatory term for black people and referenced lynching. University president David Boren ordered the SAE house shuttered, expelled two students identified as ringleaders, and said an investigation into the involvement of other members was proceeding.

The SAE chapter at Louisiana Tech did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Thursday, but a university spokesman said it has been unable to substantiate an allegation that a former member participated in the chant in 2010.

“Once we learned that, we immediately got with the current chapter president and the leadership of that chapter to ensure this activity wasn’t taking place here at Louisiana Tech,” said spokesman Dave Guerin. “They assured us that it wasn’t.

“We can’t really attest to back in 2010.”

The board of trustees and alumni of the University of Oklahoma’s SAE chapter released a statement Wednesday night acknowledging the chant surfaced at the chapter “three to four years ago and was not immediately and totally stopped. It should have been.”

At the University of Texas in Austin, the president of the local SAE had previously issued a statement denying that his chapter had ever performed a similar chant. Luke Cone said he could “speak on the behalf of my fraternity brothers that we are all profoundly distressed” about the language in the video.

Some members of some of the largest SAE chapters in the country on Thursday denied any knowledge of the racist chant.

“In my four years, I never have seen anything or heard anything like that in my individual chapter,” said Will Sneed, past president of the SAE chapter at the University of Arkansas.

Emails sent to member leaders at several other SAE chapters were not returned or were referred to the fraternity’s national organization.

“We’re not talking about it in any way,” said Grant Griffith, adviser for the SAE chapter at Auburn University. “We’re directing all questions and everything to national.”

Meanwhile, the University of Oklahoma football team expressed its outrage Thursday in a statement calling for fraternity leaders to be “expelled, suspended or otherwise disciplined severely.”

“As a team, we have come to a consensus that, in any organization, the leadership is responsible for the culture created, and in this case, encouraged. … Allowing this culture to thrive goes against everything it means to be a Sooner,” the players said.

Two former members of the fraternity’s now-defunct OU chapter have issued apologies for their role in the racist chant.

___

Crawford contributed from Chicago.

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Black Artists in America, Installation Three Wraps at the Dixon Gallery and Gardens

TRI-STATE DEFENDER — With 50+ paintings, sculptures and assemblages, the exhibit features artists like Varnette Honeywood from Los Angeles, whose pieces appeared in Bill Coby’s private collection (before they were auctioned off) and on “The Cosby Show.” Also included are works by Alonzo Davis, another Los Angeles artist who opened one of the first galleries there where Black Artists could exhibit.

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2 weeks ago

March 24, 2026

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By Candace A. Gray | Tri-State Defender

The tulips gleefully greet those who enter the gates at the Dixon Gallery & Gardens on an almost spring day. More than 650,000 bulbs of various hues are currently on display. And they are truly breathtaking.

Inside the gallery, and equally as breathtaking, is the “Black Artists in America, From the Bicentennial to September 11” exhibit, which runs through Sunday, March 29. This is the third installment of a three-part series that started years ago and illustrates part of the Black experience through visual arts in the 20th century.

“This story picks up where part two left off,’’ said Kevin Sharp, the Linda W. and S. Herbert Rhea director for the Dixon. “This era is when we really start to see the emergence of these important Black artists’ agency and freedom shine through. They start to say and express what they want to, and it was a really beautiful time.”

With 50+ paintings, sculptures and assemblages, the exhibit features artists like Varnette Honeywood from Los Angeles, whose pieces appeared in Bill Coby’s private collection (before they were auctioned off) and on “The Cosby Show.” Also included are works by Alonzo Davis, another Los Angeles artist who opened one of the first galleries there where Black Artists could exhibit.

“Though [Davis] was from LA, he actually lived in Memphis for a decade,” said Sharp. “He was a dean at Memphis College of Art, and later opened the first gallery in New York owned and operated by black curators.”

Another featured artist is former NFL player, Ernie Barnes. His work is distinctive. Where have you seen one of his most popular paintings, Sugar Shack? On the end scene and credits of the hit show “Good Times.” His piece Saturday Night, Durham, North Carolina, 1974 is in this collection.

Memphis native James Little’s “The War Baby: The Triptych” is among more than 50 works featured in “Black Artists in America, From the Bicentennial to September 11” at the Dixon Gallery & Gardens, the final installment of a three-part series highlighting the impact and evolution of Black artists through 2011.

The exhibit features other artists with Memphis ties, including abstract painter James Little, who was raised in a segregated Memphis and attended Memphis Academy of Art (before it was Memphis College of Art). He later moved to New York, became a teacher and an internationally acclaimed fixture in the art world in 2022 when he was named a Whitney Biennial selected artist at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.

Other artists like Romare Bearden, who had a Southern experience but lived up North, were featured in all three installments.

“During this period of time, he was a major figure,” said Sharp. “He wrote one of the first books on the history of African American art during a time when there were more Black academics, art teachers, more Black everything!”

Speaking of Black educators, Sharp said the head curator behind this tri-part series and Dixon’s partner in the arts is Earnestine Jenkins, Ph.D., an art history professor at the University of Memphis, who also earned a Master of Arts degree from Memphis State University (now UofM). “We began working with Dr. Jenkins in 2018,” he said.

Sharp explained that it takes a team of curators, registrars, counterparts at other museums, and more, about three years to assemble an exhibit like this. It came together quite seamlessly, he added. Each room conjured up more jaw-dropping “wows” than the one before it. Each piece worked with the others to tell the story of Black people and their collective experience during this time period.

One of the last artists about whom Sharp shared information was Bettye Saar, who will turn 100 years old this year. She’s been working in Los Angeles for 80 years and is finally getting her due. Her medium is collages or assemblages, and an incredible work of hers is on display. She’s married to an artist and has two daughters, also artists.

The exhibit catalogue bears some of these artists’ stories, among other scholarly information.

The exhibit, presented by the Joe Orgill Family Fund for Exhibitions, is culturally and colorfully rich. It is a must see and admission to the Dixon is free.

Visit https://www.dixon.org/ to learn more.

Fun Facts: An original James Little design lives in the flooring of the basketball court at Tom Lee Park, and he makes and mixes his own paint colors.