The racial/ethnic segregation aspect does appear to be very common, to the point that it appears to be the norm at large (state flagship type) universities (as opposed to small or elite-admissions schools that seem to be providing the more integrated examples).
Princeton âeating clubsâ would have the same video, only with guys in ties slumming Princeton station. As far as i can tell, the video is receiving hate because it isnât pc â meaning, it doesnât have black people in it. Last time I looked at an NAACP video, it didnât have any white people in it. Here is an example of why Donald Trump is rising in the polls: people of all kinds are tired of pc culture. Let the white girls jump in the lake and make a video of it. Why care?
@makennacompton, are you seriously comparing a college sorority to the NAACP???
@GMTplus7, UA administration did come down hard on the sorority, publicly criticizing them. See paragraph 4 here: http://www.cw.ua.edu/article/2015/08/alpha-phi-video
Of course, this has led to backlash from angry alumni and students who feel admin caved to the PC police. UA has a brand new president, an engineer by training. Heâs already, as a result of his staffâs criticism of Alpha Phi, being viewed with suspicion by the football-crazy booster contingent. One can only imagine what The Machine and their minions are thinking, or planning.
All this to say that itâs easy to be an armchair administrator, but in real life they have several competing constituencies they have to answer to. NO decision is made that doesnât tick somebody off.
Letâs also recognize that UA couldnât afford to offer all those generous merit awards if they didnât have a very sizable portion of their student body who are full pay. Wealthy sorority and fraternity members, along with UA football, help fund those pricey scholarships.
And @makennacompton, the NAACP was FOUNDED by both blacks and whites, so you donât know what youâre talking about. Also much of the original criticism of the Alpha Phi video had to do with these young woman demeaning and objectifying themselves. The criticism for the apparent lack of racial diversity came later from what I can tell.
I will freely admit that I pledged a sorority with no thought whatsoever other than hanging out with a bunch of girls I liked. They were not all like me - there was a good deal of religious, SES, ethnic, diversity, etc. as well as differing personalities, interests, ambitions, etc. It was only after I joined that I learned of the philanthropies. Our chapter was pretty active in various volunteer activities, some were mandatory all were encouraged. This was back in the late '70âs and I had done NO volunteering before that. It wasnât a thing then, at least not where I was from. I was only slightly aware of alumnae groups and had no thoughts of pledging to make connections.
I realize that most of the girls are more aware than I was. But I guess that many join for the same reason that I did. Nothing wrong with that.
@makennacompton what are you talking about? Believe it or not, if the UAlabama sorority system has a documented issue of excluding blacks or being unwelcoming towards them that extends into the 21st century: thatâs a problem. Nothing PC about that. Alpha Phiâs video just shows that Alabama has made minimal progress, not that they are violating the laws of political correctness. They canât put black girls in the video because there arenât any to include 
. And most people were attacking the video for its portrayal of women, not for race issues. So next time donât wear your arms out with that reach.
Your false analogy to the NAACP also lacks any logic behind it. There are white people leading NAACP chapters today, and white people were great advocates for the NAACP back in the day.
And please, letâs not act like the reason Donald Trump is surging is just cause he says what he means. Cause he has a long long history of blatantly sexist comments and behavior that wouldnât even get someone elected if it came out in the pre-PC eraâŠ
Re: #551 - I find myself disagreeing with GMTPlus7 at least as often as I agree, but Iâm with you on this. They donât have to be doing any world-changing activities, but perhaps you could have just seen them hanging around the house or library studying, with their hair pulled back and in comfortable attire . . . or in active sportswear, rather than dry bikinis . . . or just dressed and coiffed in a range of styles that would indicate that they seek individuals rather than âtypes.â An endomorphic, curly-haired brunette in denim cutoffs and a peasant blouse (add a pair of Dr. Schollâs sandals, and you have my teenage, warm-weather self) - regardless of how energetic and gregarious she might be - would not infer that she would be welcome . . . nor would anyone unwilling to invest a lot of time, money, and discomfort on tanning sprays and depilatory waxing.
I have no expertise on the effectiveness of this sort of video on sorority recruitment, but from what I know about Alabamaâs aspirations, it isnât good for the university. They arenât having any trouble attracting young men and women who want to indulge in a decadent fantasy with other sexy, well-off white kids. Alabama wants to be all that and a lot more.
Seeing the same cute girl in an oversize T-shirt and ponytail makes a very different statement. Iâve seen more of that from other groups at Alabama.
I do not understand why people feel these young women must portray themselves as something they are not.
Would you expect a house of âearthyâ types to throw in some highly coiffed, designer attired women just to make that type feel welcome?
The funny thing about the criticism of these women is that nearly anyone can look like them if they really want to. Anyone can be a blonde, spray tan, and wear makeup and trendy clothing. They can even lose weight if necessary if looking like the women in this house is so important to them.
I wonder why many of you are so eager to hold UA to a standard you donât hold to other major schools. Does MIT have nearly as many Black students? Does UCLA, UGA, UF, FSU, HARVARD, ETC? The answer is no. In contrast, UA has one of the largest enrollments of Blacks of any major school in the nation. Some of you are such drama queens on this issue.
Iâve gotten a chance to view the video, and I can see what people are objecting to.
This is a recruitment video, deliberately made and disseminated by this sorority to attract members. Therefore we can assume that this video portrays the sororityâs most important goals and shared values as they want these values to be portrayed. This is what the sorority chose to represent itself.
And watching the video, I conclude that this sororityâs entire purpose is for the women to curate their bodies to the breed standard and display them-- presumably, display their bodies to men, judging by the long, lingering shots of legs, butts and chests.
The women in the video are doing literally nothing else but displaying their bodies. Theyâre not working, theyâre not studying, theyâre not engaged in hobbies or avocations, they do some self-conscious playing that is not really play but posing at play. Maybe they have lives outside of posing for men, but if so, the video doesnât show it.
There may be some interesting women in this sorority. There may be some accomplished women. There may be some smart women. Some of them women might have skills and abilities not related to modeling. But clearly brains, interestingness, abilities and accomplishments are unimportant: what is important to these women is displaying themselves. âVapidâ and âshallowâ hardly go far enough in describing the beer commercial nature of this video. This is the very art and essence of objectification. These women are making themselves into objects for the consumption of the male gaze.
Itâs their choice to disseminate their video, and itâs my choice to say they appear to be airheads who would be out of their depth in a mud puddle.
@Atlanta68 Such comparisons are of little value without the context of both a regional and national snapshot. Nationally, AA identified people are about 13% of the population. However, and this is where your example woefully fails, AA in Alabama make up almost 30% of the state population. Thus, is a vivid continuation of the historical conscription, by institutions, to allow access to every quarter in the south.
Oh, you provided rather convenient examples as both Yale and Columbia have AA populations at double digits or aboveâŠ
To be certain, so while the white population in Alabama is about 68-69%, at UA there is an over-representation at about 83-84%. Who do you think is most affecuated by this statistical disparity?
Having black students, and treating black students fairly are two very different things @Atlanta68 . UAlabamaâs sorrority system has a history of mistreatment of blacks even into the 21st century (though I donât think thatâs a specific knock against Alpha Phi, itâs just culture). Obviously there will be a lot of African Americans at Ole Miss/Alabama/whatever: A lot of black kids live in those states. Going to the school and having the same opportunities inside that school are two very different things.
According to this source: http://oir.yale.edu/yale-factsheet
Yaleâs black demographic is 9%.
I will respond in more detail later, but here is an article that clarifies some things: http://www.cw.ua.edu/article/2015/08/minority-bid-numbers-increase-13-percent
"According to a statement from Andreen, the number of African American women who received bids increased by 19 percent for a total of 25 women out of 34 initial participants.
Two out of 34 failed to show, four withdrew, and three did not find a home among the 16 UA Panhellenic sororities during the âmutual selection process.â So of the young Black ladies who rushed, and completed the process, only three did not find a mutual selection. I think that is admirable.
And does anyone have any evidence that UA is minimizing its Black enrollment? Yes, there are a lot of Black people in Alabama relative to other states, but its enrollment of Black students is quite good even compared with other schools in the South, like UGA, UF, and Auburn.
And if diversity everywhere is the key, why not criticize MIT and Harvard for not enrolling more Blacks, or UCLA, or any other school with few Black students?
When non Southerners criticize the South for its racial issues, I always wonder if they think Southerners are innately evil people. Are Southern Whites REALLY more racist than Whites in other places, all things being equal? Maybe its time to stop projecting.
And here is what none of you address. This is largely a class issue. The great majority of students at UA probably can not afford to be in a Greek house. And the average income of Black Alabamians is a lot less than that of White Alabamians. AND UA has a very strong Black Greek system, that has a lot of pride. NO qualified Black student is being denied entry into UA, not one. If you have evidence to the contrary, show it.
Iâm glad to see Yale doing so well with diversity, but I am sure you know part of that is due to affirmative action. UA does not need to use affirmative action to boost its Black enrollment. Letâs get real. UA could drop its standards, though it already has a fairly low minimum ACT requirement. Is that what you guys want? Oh but I thought you preferred more selective schools? Which is it?
And did I, a White man, have the same opportunities as the minority of Whites who were in the Greek system at UA back in the late 80s?. NO. Because its not about race, its about class.
@Atlanta68 so are you denying there was not uproar about racial exclusion in Alabama sororities over the past few years. Obviously minority bid numbers would increase THIS year, because there was a huge uproar about it LAST year.
MIT and Harvard are probably being generous by enrolling the amount of blacks that they do. They are private institutions practicing hollistic admissions and are some of the most exclusive schools in the world. For various socioeconomic and cultural reasons (that i could go into in a more thought out post) there are less blacks that are highly qualified, that apply, and that are accepted into these schools. However through affirmative action and other programs (like say Questbridge) they try to increase their minority enrollment. UCLA as a high ranking public (with high average scores) and a school that is WAY to expensive for most OOS to justify attendance also probably isnât as good of an analogy as UAlabama.
As far as UGA is concerned, as someone from Atlanta also, itâs hard for me to really fathom. I do know that Georgia State is about half-black while UGA carries traditional PWI enrollment trends. I think it may have a lot to do with Zell Miller/HOPE programs, with the higher standards it takes to get into UGA as opposed to GSU, and with what schools are emphasized in different school systems. Different schools and school systems emphasize different directionals for most students, with UGA/Tech being reserved for top performers.
I think if you were to parse down in the admissions of color at Y, they would be far above the norm at anything at UA, and in fact, many of the top students, at UA (irionically) are OOS. A state university has a distinct mission and obligation to its population, that is my point, and where it has failed in many instancesâŠ