Setting the record straight on UNT fraternity’s Rebel flag

In a Sunday column in which I said forgiveness was due to two former University of Oklahoma students who lead their fraternity brothers in a racist chant, I recalled my own university days decades ago when one fraternity’s members regularly flew their Confederate battle flag and were often accused of overt racial incidents.

Today, I need to offer my own apology to the now-much-maligned Sigma Alpha Epsilon and ask for members’ forgiveness, for I relied too much on my memory — which failed me. And while memory is a great attribute for a journalist, it must always be confirmed through written documentation or other corroborating sources.

That is something I know, and something I usually do.

As I wrote the passage saying SAE displayed the so-called Rebel flag, it occurred to me to check my college yearbook because, as associate editor in charge of the section on organizations (including Greeks), I distinctly remember choosing a photo of fraternity members with the flag at the homecoming football game.

I did not consult that yearbook, which, although inconvenient on the highest level of my tall home office bookshelf, was available to me.

Then I got what was a terse message with a pointed question from a fellow alumnus of the University of North Texas.

Jim Dixon was polite, introducing himself as one who used to listen to my talk radio show, and the founding president of the SAE chapter at UNT. He asked, “When was this display [of the Confederate flag]?”

He added, “As I was the chapter’s founding president and its chapter advisor for a number of years, I would like to hear of the time period in which this obviously historical and controversial type of behavior occurred.”

I wrote back and told him the years that I was at the university, 1965 to 1969, to which he responded: “I am aware of your NT ties. Again, when were you aware of the routine display of the Confederate flag by SAE?”

By the time his second message arrived, I’d climbed the ladder to the collection of UNT (then North Texas State University) “annuals” and quickly turned to the index. There was no Sigma Alpha Epsilon (an organization founded in 1856) listed.

When I turned to the Greek section — the one I had supervised and edited for this book of record — I saw the photo I had recalled, the editorial copy I had written, and I realized the fraternity I was referring to was not SAE, but Kappa Alpha, another Greek organization also “rooted” in the Southern tradition.

The short article accompanying the two pages of photos noted that Kappa Alpha was awarded first prize for its Homecoming house decoration, and that its “annual Old South Weekend, May 11-12, was scheduled to be held in either Dallas or Fort Worth.”

While I don’t retract my statement that SAE is rooted in the southern tradition, I most certainly retract that I saw its members flying the rebel flag at UNT while I was there. That university chapter was not established until 1988, Dixon said.

“Unfortunately, the chapter is currently off campus, having its charter pulled in 2003 for numerous other issues,” he said.

“When we started the colony at North Texas and through our chartering in 1988, the members of SAE Texas Kappa at North Texas took great care to approach our fraternity experience with pride of our leadership on campus, to young men and into our adult years,” Dixon said. “We approached our growth through inclusion — searching out new members as brothers that could make our group stronger rather than larger.”

To SAE members, I offer my sincere apology.

Note: In Sunday’s column, I will write about the exemplary record of the Dallas prep school attended by one of the former OU students who led the racist chant.

This story was originally published March 31, 2015 at 6:03 PM with the headline "Setting the record straight on UNT fraternity’s Rebel flag."