Syracuse University suspended 15 members of a professional fraternity who appeared in videos that the school’s chancellor deemed “extremely racist,” the students’ lawyer told CNN.
“The 15 students have been suspended indefinitely for one to two years,” Karen Felter, the lawyer who represents all 15 of the students, told CNN. “This means the university does not have any obligation to readmit them once the suspension is over. It is up to their discretion.”
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The students were suspended on Tuesday, according to Felter.
The two videos showed members of the Theta Tau engineering fraternity using racial slurs, homophobic comments and mocking people with disabilities.
Dean of Students Robert Hradsky announced that the hearings and deliberations regarding the students’ actions had concluded in a letter to the campus community on Friday. However, he did not specify what the outcome for the students was.
Theta Tau was suspended in April after the secret videos were first released by the independent student newspaper, The Daily Orange. The fraternity was later permanently expelled from campus.
The group has apologized for the videos and said that they were made as part of a “satirical sketch of an uneducated, racist, homophobic, misogynist, sexist, ableist and intolerant person.”
“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,” they said in a statement.
After the videos were first reported on, Chancellor Kent Syverud denounced the videos as “extremely racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, sexist and hostile to people with disabilities.”
Theta Tau’s central office launched an investigation into the incident in April and condemned the “offensive actions and despicable language depicted in the recently released videos.”