Expelled OU Student Sorry for 'Horrible Mistake'

The two University of Oklahoma students expelled for leading a racist fraternity song have been identified—and their families want people to know they are very, very sorry. Parker Rice, a 19-year-old from Dallas, apologizes for making a "horrible mistake by joining into the singing and encouraging others to do the same" in a statement released by his father to the Dallas Morning News. Rice, a graduate of an expensive Catholic prep school, admits that booze is no excuse, nor is the fact that "the song was taught to us." More:

• Rice says his family has had to leave their home after threats, and he is seeking guidance on how to learn from the "devastating lesson" and become a man with the "courage to reject racism wherever I see or experience it in the future."

• The second expelled student, Levi Pettit, is also from the Dallas area, and his parents have issued a statement online apologizing to "the community he has hurt" and saying that despite the "disgusting" video, he is not a racist, but someone who "made a horrible mistake, and will live with the consequences forever."
• The OU chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon was closed after the video emerged, and the mood was somber as students shifted the last of their belongings out of the former frat house as the midnight deadline approached last night, reports the Oklahoma Daily. University authorities changed the locks shortly after midnight.
• Sigma Alpha Epsilon, one of the nation's biggest fraternities—and also reportedly the "deadliest"—has been kicked off campuses before and had many more warnings, with 131 disciplinary incidents in the last five years alone, reports USA Today. The frat's national president says the group is "disgusted" by the behavior of "bigoted idiots" who did "enormous harm to the other 15,000 undergraduates, our 200,000 alumni, your staff and Supreme Council, all who were equally disgusted by their vile and racist behavior."

(More University of Oklahoma stories.)