Local students react to fraternity firestorm following racist chant

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- A fraternity firestorm ignited at the University of Oklahoma after members of Sigma Alpha Epsilon were caught singing racist chants.

The nine second video showed SAE brothers chanting the "N word" and implying African Americans should be lynched rather than be in their fraternity.

Today, one of the chant leaders, identified as Parker Rice, apologized, saying what he did was wrong, reckless, and fueled by alcohol.

Rice and another brother, Levi Pettit, were expelled from school and the fraternity at the school has been shut down.

Today students at local universities reacted to the controversy.

University of Pennsylvania student Caroline Beebe tells us, "It's 2015. I felt like this shouldn't be happening anymore, but it is... It's ridiculous."

Sohil Mehta, a Drexel University sophomore and member of Delta Epsilon Psi, says, "It is awful. That's definitely something that shouldn't be happening...that song was definitely offensive to a lot of people."

On campuses across Philadelphia students are calling the offensive lyrics spewed by University of Oklahoma fraternity members both disgusting and disturbing.

Students say the urban campuses of Drexel, Penn, and Temple are very diverse, and they imagine the culture at a Midwestern school like Oklahoma is much different.

"I feel like we are very understanding, very all-encompassing culture here, and I appreciate that. Maybe it has to do with being in the city," Beebe said.

At the center of the Oklahoma scandal is the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity.

Penn is one of the few local universities that currently has a local chapter and we weren't able to get comment from the chapter. No one answered the door at the fraternity, but fraternity members in general say the scandal gives the Greek culture a black eye.

Orcel Kounga, a member of the Phi Kappa Si fraternity, says, "It's kind of like a disgrace to our community. In terms of Greeks it gives us a bad name, it gives us a bad reputation."

Mehta tells us, "I was actually at my fraternity house watching that and the older heads, the older heads in our fraternity, were definitely warning us, don't do anything stupid like that. Obviously, that's not something we would do. It was definitely something wrong."

Drexel freshman Owen Fessick says, "That that would be accepted by a frat and it would be OK for them to do that is just insane."