Syracuse Permanently Expels Frat After Racist Video

Syracuse University has permanently expelled the Theta Tau engineering frat after a pair of videos surfaced in which members offended just about every marginalised group.

After 93 years of existence, the professional fraternity will "never be able to reorganise at Syracuse University," a spokeswoman said in a statement to Syracuse.com. A permanent expulsion, under SU policy, is reserved for "extraordinary circumstances."

Chancellor Kent Syverud said that individual students could also be expelled or suspended as a result of the "racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, ableist, and sexist" videos. Last Thursday, he suspended Theta Tau. "The students have rights in this process and they will be observed," he said. "Outcomes could include suspension or expulsion from Syracuse University."

On Saturday, Syverud said that the university is pursuing an investigation into the videos with "speed and vigour" and has interviewed dozens of people, according to the Daily Orange.

In the first video, members participate in a series of sketches in which they simulate sex acts with a beer can, laugh about gassing Jews, and one of them pledges, "I solemnly swear to always have hatred in my heart for n------, s----, and most importantly the fucking k----."

The second video shows them pretending to sexually assault a disabled man. One of the members says, "He's drooling out of his mouth because he's retarded in a wheelchair."

The videos have initiated a campus-wide conversation about race and identity at the upstate New York school, with many minority students speaking out about feeling unsafe on the mostly white campus.

The fraternity, in a lengthy apology posted on its website, maintained that the video was meant to be satire — a roast of a conservative, Republican brother in the frat. "It was a satirical sketch of an uneducated, racist, homophobic, misogynist, sexist, ableist, and intolerant person," the frat said in the statement. "The young man playing the part of this character nor the young man being roasted do not hold any of the horrible views espoused as a part of that sketch. We would like to believe that the new members seen in the video laughing at the horrible things being said were not laughing in concurrence with these beliefs, but in fact the opposite — that racism, sexism, and homophobia are so wrong that they are laughable. None of the satire was said or done in malice."