“According to the Panhellenic Association website, 1,494 of women who participated in 2014 rush were from out-of-state. Out-of-state students have held majority in the overall Greek system since 2012, while the overall student population just tipped to majority out-of-state in 2014.”
They don’t tell us how many of the OOS are from other southern states, but there is a bow to diversity- the mix of in state and OOS students.
I was a first generation college student from a lower middle class background. Landed a job with a Big 4 accounting firm. There were four partners in the local office at the time. They all lived way on the other end of town from where I grew up. They all belonged to country clubs and were very comfortable in that old money environment. They were all excellent golfers. Neither I or my father had ever owned a set of golf clubs. I stood out like a sore thumb among the people they hired that year. Everybody else could blend right in. They looked more like the sons and daughters of the partners I suppose. They knew what to do and what to say. I had a ton of social etiquette to learn. There was no one in the family I could ask. It was way more challenging for me than the work itself. It is hard to believe now, but I didn’t know then that when men wear a button up shirt with a tie it is expected that you wear an undershirt underneath. My father never wore dress shirts, much less a tie. A thousand little things like that weren’t intuitive to me but were imperative to fitting in and being taken seriously.
Getting to the point (there is a point), in this day and age (and yes even in flyover country), I see way more barriers based on class and SES than those that exist based on race. We aren’t living in the 1960s anymore. I am old enough to be the father of any of the girls in the video, and I wasn’t even alive in the 1960s. My kids can’t even imagine there was a segregated society like the one that existed back then in the South.
The crux of it for me is this. I endured my share of smirks, jokes at my expense and the like as I learned to navigate that world. My WASP card wasn’t worth a whole lot. Wouldn’t trade it for a minute though. I am very glad no one came up with any mandated quota that people from my side of town had to make up of any new hire class every year. I am glad no one ever made anyone invite me along or include me in any social club just for the sake of balance and representation. I know why I landed that first job, and I know why I ultimately succeeded in it. I was determined to be the expert in the room and I became that. It defines me now. Quotas and the like in the end just create asterisks, and I don’t want any asterisks by my name.
@Ivygreeklife What you fail to either acknowledge or ignore, is that black greek system was a function of necessity borne out of the tragic and conscripted treatment of blacks for over a 100 years, specifically within the higher education systems in the south. In a case, not too old (1992), US v. Fordice, the court found that the eight public universities in Mississippi had not sufficiently integrated and that the state must take affirmative action to change this under the Equal Protection Clause. Furthermore, the court found that, although the state had eliminated explicit prohibitions on the admission of black students to institutions including the University of Mississippi, Mississippi State University, and the University of Southern Mississippi, the Court of Appeals had not properly reviewed the set of discriminatory policies used by the state to suppress black enrollment at these schools.
So, specific to Alabama and sororities, University of Alabama, foschool was put on the hot seat in 2013 when the university’s newspaper brought to national attention that Kennedi Cobb, an all-around perfect potential new member – minus the fact that she was black – didn’t receive a single bid from any of the 16 sororities on campus. In it’s ENTIRE history, the universities’s sororities had only previously admitted a single black member.
So, your stated rationale and excuse is pure hokum as applied to both history and facts.
“It’s possible that if they had one black member that she’d be in lots of the shots. You know, like in glossy college brochures.”
Like this one does.
The content is basically the same as the Alpha Phi video, but the message is different and quite easy to get. Since this is, after all, branding and advertising: we are very pretty for sure, but not too sexy/sleazy; we have a black girl; we have brunettes; we do Bible study; we are students so we do study sometimes.
I suspect that many of you would have a less visceral reaction to this one for the reasons Nottelling points out. Although the vibe could hardly be seen as progressive or modern.
The Alpha Phis branded and advertised themselves in a particular way – sexy Stepford skinny blonde southern retro. Their target audience is fine with and looking for that. But they shouldn’t be surprised or offended if other folks see their advertising as vapid Barbie bimbos.
There may in fact be smart Alpha Phis in the group. But their video gives the viewer no reason to believe that they exist. It actually does a great job to convince you otherwise.
But I’m obviously not the target audience – I had no idea that my 80s aviator shades had so completely re-established dominance over the 90s-00s wayfarers. I’m back in style!!!
FINALLY!!! I found some of the data I’ve been searching for. If anyone else is interested:
If you were an 18 year old AA female and could choose to pledge the AA sorority or the nearly all white newly open to you sorority, which would you choose? I don’t think the traditional sororities stand much chance of recruiting a critical mass of AA members as long as the AA sororities exist on campus.
I almost left this piece out, because I knew it was all you would care about. But honestly, black fraternities and sororities were created because they weren’t getting bids to traditional fraternities. This isn’t happening anymore. Even at the most deeply southern universities in America. http://uanews.ua.edu/2015/08/successful-ua-fall-sorority-recruitment-concludes/ Everyone can get a bid.
The court case you brought up is completely irrelevant “hokum” as you would call it (nice word). Black fraternities were not created because they were not being admitted into the school. So the whole court case is irrelevant in regards to this discussion.
I don’t have a problem with cultural fraternities and sororities. If they want to be culturally homogenous, they can.
You fail to acknowledge, or you ignore asian fraternities and sororities.
But seriously, in this day and age, anybody can get a bid, even at Alabama. The number is increasing every year. Just look at the link above.
I’ve seen a lot of perfect potential new members come and go. There are a lot of reasons for not getting a bid. Personality is 10 times more important than anything else, if it’s not good, you aren’t getting a bid.
OP, thank you for filling in the backstory. I just read last year’s Marie Claire article on Crystal Stallworth’s rush experience. Having read the article, the Alpha Phi recruitment video at Alabama seems deliberately intended to perpetuate an injustice. My heart goes out to those who rushed and received no bids, and to those who didn’t rush simply because they recognized the system at UA for what it is: discriminatory.
Regarding accents, I don’t think prominent politicians from 4-5 decades ago are really relevant to how young peole talk today.
Accents in general are fading in the US. Urban people in many regions have less of an accent than rural ones. The girls in that video didn’t have noticeable Southern accents but they may well be from Alabama. Or not–Bama has lots of OOS students.
I’m from the South and when I went to college in Nrw England people often commented that I didn’t have an accent. They’d also occasionally say “there’s your accent” after some particular word I said in the course of conversation. Or when I used “coke” as a generic term.
^^ That’s been my experience in the Midwest with my Southern accent. Some people hear it right away. Others are just blindsided when I say “y’all” or “Coke” or “crawdad” or “bedroom shoes.”
You really can’t infer anything from the lack of an accent. My sister’s friends in Atlanta have very little accent - even those who grew up in the area.
Well yeah, now that the spotlight is on, black girls are getting bids. But I’m going to try to be as positive about this as possible–now that the spotlight is on, the modern girls currently in the sororities are free to ignore the concerns of alumnae, and can instead do what is right in terms of ending discrimination based on race.
And who is making that decision, oh, I forgot, a bunch of white homogeneous woman–and you act as if the whole thing has totrally corrected itself. It was just two years ago that the university leadership formally chided the sorority for overt discrimination. The court case was presented not to the Greek system directly, but to show that systemic actions have been in play for generations. It is under this backdrop in which many of the participants, black and white (and everything in-between) operate. Your submission that blacks have their own system is like an allegory that the leadership at Augusta made towards women–they have their own clubs–why join ours?..and it was pithy then, and pithy now.
By way of background, I’m AA and work in academia, and this is a topic for many in leadership–not necessarily the greek system, although I have to say, many in top posts (chancellors and up) frown upon it behind closed doors.
It’s going to be a long process at Alabama, even if everybody is suddenly of good will and determined not to discriminate based on race. 34 black women applying is not many, at a huge school that is 11% black. The fact that most of them got bids may result in more applying next year–especially if those who actually join sororities have good experiences.
I don’t think it necessarily has to be a long process. Many teenagers are better at shaking off the past than adults are. There may already be a critical mass of students at Alabama who want change, and “peer pressure” is not always a bad thing.
@JHS - Lynyrd Skynyrd may have sung Sweet Home Alabama, but the band was from Jacksonville, Florida.
I wish they would have used that song in their video instead of the tune they choose…Would have probably helped their recruiting efforts!
The first step is always to get rid of the de jure segregation. That step is absolutely necessary but is never sufficient. Looks like that step has been taken with respect to UA’s greek system in the last couple of years.
The second step is to get rid of the de facto segregation. That’s always slower and more difficult. Because it involves race but also class, SES, freedom to associate, and lots of other human tendencies. But kids do adapt faster than others.
@Zinhead : I didn’t know that, obviously . . . but does it make much of a difference?
Next you’ll be telling me that the Five Blind Boys of Alabama really came from Georgia. (The women of whatever that sorority is didn’t sound like the Five Blind Boys of Alabama, in any of their incarnations, but I didn’t really expect that.)
I could have cited Shelby Lynne, Allison Moorer, Scott Bondy. I could have cited Katie Crutchfield of Waxahatchee, but she is almost devoid of a Southern accent after living in the Northeast for 5-6 years. I could have cited Molly Hatchett and .38 Special, but it turns out they were from Jacksonville, too.
EDT: Whoops. Confused Jacksonville with Tallahassee. Yes, I’m clueless about Alabama.
However, the evidence from photo albums is that historically white sororities at non-southern campuses commonly remain overwhelmingly white even when the host campus itself has substantial numbers of non-white students (and one can observe similar trends in historically black and Asian houses). So self-segregation seems to be a continuing phenomenon even among the current traditional college-age generation, and it is not exclusive to the south.
Back when the whole thing blew up at AL a few years ago, let us recall that the girls in the house wanted to give a bid to the young woman, and the alumni advisor(s) nixed it, after which, IIRC, the rush chair and possibly some others resigned. So at least at that one house, it wasn’t the sisters’ fault.
I read a lot on the subject at that time, here, in the student newspaper–which I have to say was impressive–and on various sites devoted to sorority stuff. There was a lot of chat about the unlikelihood of any “Northern” girl getting into an “old row” house. There was a lot of talk about “The Machine” and about how the good frats would not want to socialize with a sorority that had black members, how taking that step would immediately tank the social status of the house, and on and on.
IIRC, the U Pres ordered them to re-open rush, and a few black girls rushed and pledged at a few houses. It would be interesting to know whether the social status of those houses did indeed tank. But I don’t know if I want to dive into that world again. 