Patrick McGovern, executive director of the national Acacia fraternity, said in an email the organization is aware of the allegations and is "fully in support" of an investigation into the matter.
Ohio University's chapter of Acacia is being investigated by the fraternity's headquarters following a video of a sexually explicit song that was posted to social media.
Patrick McGovern, executive director of Acacia Fraternity International Headquarters, said in an email the national fraternity is aware of the allegations and is "fully in support" of an investigation into the matter.
OU said Oct. 30 it had opened its own investigation of Acacia following that video and issued a "directive to immediately cease and desist all organizational activity" while the investigation is ongoing, according to a previous Post report.
“Our staff is in communication with the university administration and will collaborate with them in resolving the matter," McGovern said in an email.
The fraternity’s headquarters are “prepared to take appropriate disciplinary action” toward Acacia's OU chapter, McGovern said in an email.
OU Spokesman Dan Pittman said in an email the university has no new information about the investigation. Pittman said the university is working to complete the investigation "as soon as possible," adding that such investigations typically take several weeks.
A preliminary investigation by the university indicated members of Acacia were the men in that video, which was shot by a Post staff member Oct. 28. In the video, men appear to sing the phrases, "Send nudes, don't let me down. Take my soft dick and make it harder," to the tune of "Hey Jude" by The Beatles.
The Acacia members were singing to Alpha Delta Pi sorority members on the front steps of the sorority chapter’s house on South Court Street, near Baker Center.
“We do not condone the actions captured in the video,” McGovern said in an email. “It is clear the men in this case did not exercise good judgment or uphold Acacia's standards.”
Ryan Connelly, Acacia's OU chapter president, declined to comment on the matter.
Ryan Powers, a junior studying philosophy and a member of the OU Student Union, said the video is a “very visible example of rape culture.”
“When the national chapter investigates, that says that something is wrong here,” Ellenore Holbrook, a junior studying political science and a member of the student group F--kRapeCulture, said.
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The song is not the first time Acacia has been criticized for sex-related misconduct. In August, the OU Student Union distributed a pamphlet to students that accused Acacia of being “notorious for drugging their free drinks and raping girls.”
“I think the video confirms a lot of the beliefs that the Student Union has had on Acacia as well as other groups like FRC and just women and other students in general have had about Acacia,” Powers said. “It's also troubling that our university had to wait for something like this to happen before opening an investigation, proving again that they don’t really care about the stories of survivors and other women on campus.”
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