On
Sunday a nine second viral video clip of
several fraternity men chanting some very horrific things reached the email of Katelyn
Griffith, an editor for “The Oklahoma Daily” student newspaper. Within hours,
the story and video instantly made its way across cyberspace and the brothers
of Sigma Alpha Epsilon at Oklahoma University were pulled out of the shadows
and exposed.
As
of today, the fraternity has been rightfully shunned by its national
organization and fellow members, kicked off their local campus, their
fraternity house has been evacuate, and several members have been expelled.
At the same time, people across the digital world
are weighing in on the subject.
That being said, I felt it was important for me to
address the actions of these men on our blog seeing that this platform is
geared to Greek Life members.
Let me start off by saying, I do not, under any
circumstances, condone the actions of these “men”. No questions asked, these
men were wrong and deserve the consequences of this video surfacing. The very
fact that several severe punishments were handed out to this “chapter” by both
the parent organization and local university within hours of the video
surfacing is indicative of the severity of offense and the lack of tolerance of
these distasteful actions by other Greek Life members.
However, I do not agree with others, from
individuals to the media ( please refer to this CNN opinion article here), using this as an opportunity to shame all
Greek lettered organizations as social cliques that pick and choose who will
join their organizations based on qualities such as skin color, religion,
sexual orientation or any other social issue.
As a proud member of Greek Life who comes from a
chapter with several diverse women, I find it insulting that the actions of
these men has become synonyms with Greek Life as a whole.
In my humble opinion, it is morally and ethically
wrong pass judgment on an entire group of people based on the decisions of the
few; It is not fair to judge all Greeks based on the actions of these “men” just
like it isn’t fair to judge anyone based on any other social issue.
This is one chapter at one university, there are
hundreds of chapters from hudreds of Greek Lettered Organizations across the United States alone, each with their own
histories, beliefs, and values. No chapter is the same even within the same
overarching organization, how is it possibly fair to form an opinion of Greek Life
as a whole based on one selection of “men”.
That being
said, I urge people to look at this terrible offense as what it is, the actions
of a few Greek Life members, not every Greek Life member.
