April 16, 2007

Sigma Pi Phi, the oldest black Greek-letter fraternity, emphatically supports the decision by CBS and NBC and other media outlets to remove radio and television personality Don Imus from the airwaves following his denigrating and offensive comments about the Rutgers University women's basketball team.

The Fraternity, which comprises some of America's most prominent African American men, found Imus's comments to be "despicable, intolerable and racist," according to Grand Sire Archon (the organization's international president) Cornell Leverette Moore. The dismissal of Imus by the networks should signal to others that such attacks on human decency, together with the insidious slide from civility into the slime of hate speech that they give license to, will not be tolerated. "We cannot be lulled into thinking that this small victory of decency over vulgarity, achieved in the firing of Imus, represents the final defeat of such vile invective in the popular culture and public discourse," Grand Sire Archon Moore cautioned. "As Americans, we must be diligent in removing all vestiges of such racist and misogynist language from our society."