At the University of Alabama, about 27 percent of the college’s more than 34,000 students are involved in a greek organization.

Cathy Andreen, director of media relations for the school, said the university is committed to inclusion, and as a result has one of the most diverse greek systems in the nation.

But last fall, the University of Alabama fell under criticism after a female student was not given a bid to any of the sororities she rushed on account of her skin color. The student is African American.

Now, some members of Alabama’s student government are taking a stand on bias in the greek system.

But other members are meeting them with resistance.

The student senate voted to send “A Resolution Supporting the Complete Integration of Fraternities and Sororities on the University of Alabama Campus” to the committee. The resolution was proposed on the last day of the senate session and cannot be carried over to the new term. As a result, this form of the resolution will not pass.

Katie Smith, one of the co-authors of the resolution who presented it on the senate floor and fielded questions about it, said she was surprised by the reception the resolution received, including the questions she was asked.

“Maybe some senators didn’t want to take a stand,” Smith said. “Some don’t think that this is SGA’s place, and I totally disagree with that. I feel like this is our place. We’re student government. We should be talking about these things.”

Smith said she did not propose the resolution earlier because she feared retaliation from “The Machine,” an underground organization that allegedly influences the University of Alabama’s student government. Smith said that members of “The Machine” approached her and told her not to propose the resolution.

The student senators’ concerns revolved were mostly centered on the part of the resolution that called for students to take “necessary action” to address segregation in greek life, which other senators feared implied the need for a quota system, according to a March 26 Huffington Post article.

“Given the history of the University of Alabama in the civil rights movement, it is imperative that the campus takes every necessary action to remove the stigma that currently surrounds this campus regarding its legacy of segregation,” the measure read in the article.

Chisolm Allenlundy, one of the co-authors of the bill, said that any resolution by the student government is non-binding and would not have required any specific action from greek organizations. He said it was only meant to show the student government’s support of integration.

“This resolution was an attempt to basically allow the SGA to take an affirmative stand to encourage integration and to demonstrate to the rest of the country essentially that the student body has support,” Allenlundy said.

Andreen added that the SGA Senate does not determine institutional policies and procedures. She said the university has developed and implemented plans for future recruitment periods that will help ensure progress in increasing diversity.

Allenlundy said the University of Alabama has a reputation as a racist campus and that, overall, it’s not. He said he hoped that this resolution would help to declare the student government’s support for greek life integration and portray it as an organization that, like the majority of the student body, is not racist. Allenlundy said that other senators are hoping to propose a similar resolution during the next senate session.

“The students at this university by and large are not racist,” Allenlundy said. “They fully support an integrated greek system, but they have no way of channeling their voice through student government. When this resolution is shot down, what it really means is that those students are not being represented.”

Published on April 3, 2014 at 12:06 am

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