By now, you've heard about the racial incident that occurred with the fraternity, Sigma Alpha Epsilon at the University of Oklahoma. If you haven't, you can read the following article. To watch the video, click here.
As I watched the video in disappointment, as a former Higher Education professional and fraternity man myself, I couldn't help but think about the aftermath. Specifically, I knew it would make the news. I knew there would be a cry for justice. I knew there would be repercussions. However, one thing still bothered me. What happens when the chant stops?
What I mean by that is when I worked in Higher Ed, I always felt we as professionals struggled enough with risk management issues. When we finally started to get ahead of the game, we fell through the cracks in other areas. One of those areas were the teachable moments after an incident occurred.
Right now, SAE members at OU are packing their bags and in a state of disbelief as to what just happened to them. Why? The University President told them they had to move out by midnight on Tuesday, March 10th. Furthermore, the national office of SAE has closed the chapter and suspended all members. See their statement here.
I commend both the University and National organization for their swift action and strong leadership.
Yet, I keep asking myself, "what about the SAE members?" Are they all bad guys? No. Are they all racist? No. Do they understand the scope of what happened? I don't think so.
I don't know the history of the chapter or the diversity of its membership but what I do know is that they are kids. Kids who made a mistake. Kids who maybe were raised to believe what they chanted was right. Kids who may or may not have been intoxicated and made a poor choice. Am I giving excuses for them? No. However, it's important to note the ramifications of such actions to college age students.
What do I wish would happen? I wish there was open dialogue with the chapter. I wish the brothers had a chance to apologize (if they haven't already). I wish Higher Ed. professionals at OU were making it a priority to discuss this incident amongst the Greek community and larger University community as a whole (if they haven't already).
I dunno. I look back on my time as a Higher Ed. professional and when these type of situations occurred, I wish I would have done more AFTER the publicity went away. I focused so much time on investigating the incident, reviewing/clarifying policies and judicial enforcement that the "rehab" process was an after-thought. Sure there may have been a workshop or sanctions but I'm talking about PERSONAL rehab with the members.
I'd bet money there are SAE brothers in tears at this moment. I bet there are racial threats members are receiving. I bet there are some questioning their value system. I bet some are concerned they may get expelled from school.
Those are real issues. Real concerns. Concerns that at least in my experiences, didn't get enough attention.
So what now? I hope there will be intentional conversation with the members of the SAE chapter as well as the Greek community as a whole. I hope time will be invested in ensuring while the chapter members did an awful thing, they can learn from their mistakes. Finally, I hope in some cases, there will be a chance to potentially change a member's value system to accept all walks of life.
