This is a recorded livestream commentary by TJ Walker about a racist video showing members of the SAE fraternity at the University of Oklahoma chanting racial slurs and referencing lynching. Walker describes the footage as unequivocal racism and praises University of Oklahoma President David Boren for a swift, decisive crisis response (condemnation, expulsion/suspensions, removal of fraternity letters, sending students home). Walker rates the university's crisis communications highly and argues decisive action was necessary to protect the university's reputation.
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The University of Oklahoma faces a major crisis. How are they faring? As you may have heard on Sunday morning, a video surfaced of members of the SAE fraternity at University of Oklahoma on a bus chanting there will never be a insert n word here at SAE over and over again. And then further lyrics referen lynching of black people. Folks, there was no ambiguity here about oh, being politically correct or people being touchy or reading racism into something. This was pure, unadulterated, unfiltered racism. As pure as it gets. So what do you do if you're a university in this situation? Well, David Boren is the president of the University of Oklahoma. He's also a savvy politician. He's a former governor, a former US Senator, and he knew a crisis when he saw one and he acted accordingly. I have to give the University of Oklahoma an A in their crisis communications during this situation because here's what the university did. They took very swift action. They didn't hold a committee meeting and a series of committee meetings and hearings for a three week process, meanwhile letting the whole world attack them and vilify them. They got out front on the issue same day. And that's what has to happen in all crises these days. The university took action. They condemned the university, the fraternity, they kicked them off. They had cherry pickers pull the fraternity's letters off of the building. They ordered the students off campus, they kicked the students out of school and. And the university president offered to pay the bus fare to send the kids home. Now my bet is that the general counsel to the president said you can't kick students out just because of something they said. That's a violation of free speech, no matter how odious it is. That's my guess. And in this case, the university president did exactly the right thing. He ignored the legal counsel and he looked at the bigger picture. And my guess is he said something to the general counsel. You may be right legally and they may six months later get reinstated by the university. But by that time we will be seen as the most racist university in the country. No black students will ever want to apply here, no top white students will ever want to apply here again because they will see this as a tainted university. And no top university professors will ever apply here again because they will see us as a backward, right wing racist organization. And so the president overruled the legal counsel. Again, I'm guessing this because I've seen it in many other situations. And instead the president operated in a pure, unambiguous way. No one can fault the president for anything he could have done more harshly to speak out against this overt racism. He condemned it every which I mean, he couldn't have done any more if he had gone straight to the university house and publicly flogged these and excuse the backdrop here again, transparency, folks. This is a video screen. This is a TV screen. This is a video monitor and you just saw it. Computer, give me a little error message. But I'm going to continue because I do all these commentaries as if they were live and you get to see the flaws and all. So in conclusion, I think the university handled this perfectly. It's an ugly situation. My estimation is this can happen on almost any university in the country. It's not anything specific to the University of Oklahoma, but it is an ugly, ugly situation. In this case, the president handled it perfectly with his response to the students and through the media.
