The Phi Delta Theta fraternity has expelled the student seen in a viral video mocking a Black pro-Palestinian protester with monkey noises.
“Phi Delta Theta General Headquarters is aware of the video regarding the student protest at the University of Mississippi,” the statement reads.
“The racist actions in the video were those of an individual and are antithetical to the values of Phi Delta Theta and the Mississippi Alpha chapter,” the organization wrote. “The responsible individual was removed from membership on Friday, May 3.”
The statement comes days after the university announced it had open a student conduct investigation after the incident.
Chancellor Glenn Boyce sent a letter to students and staff on Friday noting that the university’s leaders are “aware that some statements made were offensive, hurtful and unacceptable, including actions that conveyed hostility and racist overtones.”
“While student privacy laws prohibit us from commenting on any specific student, we have opened one student conduct investigation,” Boyce wrote. “We are working to determine whether more cases are warranted.”
On Thursday, hundreds of counterprotesters at Ole Miss confronted a group of about 50 pro-Palestinian protesters on campus.
In one confrontation, a group of mostly young white men were seen yelling at a Black woman and a man can be seen jumping up and down and making monkey noises while other counterprotesters chanted “lock her up”.
The Black woman in the video was identified as Jaylin Smith, 24, a journalism and new media graduate student.
“One thing that will never break me is people taunting me or making monkey noises at me,” Smith told CNN. “The monkey gestures – and people calling me fat or Lizzo – didn’t hurt my feelings, because I know what I am. I am so confident in my Blackness. I am so confident in my size, in the way that I wear my hair, and who I am. They do not bother me. If anything, I felt pity for them for how stupidly they acted.”
FAFO, J.P.