Racism at OU, and How They’ve Responded
By Evan Rebhorn
One of the most important things to OU is the student body that lies within the school. Throughout our school history, however, it hasn’t always been so united. There have been a number of incidents that have occurred over the past decade on campus that have revealed the flaws of the community on campus. Unfortunately, racism has been the main issue that has kept the campus from being truly great and safe for all, until recently. With new changes done on campus through the OU Diversity Equity and Inclusion department on campus, we’ve seen a new wave of representation and diversity being brought to campus while racism has been effectively stomped out.
I got the chance to interview several sources about this topic, one of them just happened to be OU Alumni Isaiah Flowers, who was interviewed by the OU Daily back in early 2020. Isaiah, a former member of OU Unheard, was one of the students on campus who was directly impacted by one of the largest racial incidents on campus in recent years: the SAE incident. “I remember staying up the entire night the video came out, followed by a 7:30 AM march throughout campus. A black student groupme was created to check on each other, keep each other up to date, and to build community with one another.,” Flowers said.
For context, a group of members apart of the extinct SAE chapter on the OU campus were caught chanting a song which included racial slurs involving black student who were pledging for the fraternity. Once the video found its way outside the fraternity and onto campus, outrage ensued. While this event was detrimental in making OU Unheard heard on campus, they had already been voicing their frustrations beforehand. “I would say there were definitely some frustrations on campus prior to the SAE video. OU Unheard were hosting sit-ins where students expressed their concerns with campus, but the outrage 100% came from that video,” Flowers added. There was already tension and frustration coming from black students on campus who felt OU was falling short of maintaining equity on campus; the SAE incident was what made the bubble burst.
After the event, OU responded quickly, with David Boren, the former president of the university, expelling all members of the chapter and the chapter itself from the University, and created the OU Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion program on campus. However, there continued to be racially-driven incidents on campus up until 2020, when major changes were made on campus.
Dr. Belinda Higgs Hyppolite, who is the Vice President of the OU Diversity Equity and Inclusion program, who took on her role during early 2020, around the same time another incident occurred involving a teacher using a slur during class. What she has helped bring to campus has been detrimental for minority groups to be heard on campus. She has helped in forming DEI Week (also known as Unity Week) which has events and workshops created to give the opportunities for students to see other people’s lives through different perspectives. Other programs like the Living Library, DiversiTea, and the Lifting the Voices of Inclusion awards ceremony have all helped in create a more united and stronger-knit community on campus. Through this, Dr. Hyppolite and the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion program have turned OU into a school were black students and those of varying backgrounds have louder voices than those who aim to spread hate and division.