The issue of racial diversity involving sororities at the University of Alabama has been a controversial topic for some time. It was not until 2003 that the first Black woman student was accepted by a traditionally White sorority at the university.
But the controversy did not go away. In 2013, it was reported that no African American women were offered bids to join sororities at the University of Alabama. The next year, after a media uproar that caused an embarrassment to the university, 21 Black women registered for sorority recruitment. All 21 received a bid to join one of the Greek organizations and all 21 women accepted their invitations. All 16 sororities on campus offered bids to African American women and Black women accepted offers at 10 different sororities.
This year’s sorority rush was just completed. Nearly, 2,700 women participated and 93 percent received bids. There were 25 African American students who received bids among the 2,488 women who were accepted at traditionally White sororities. Thus, Black students are just one percent of all new sorority members at the University of Alabama this year. Blacks make up about 11 percent of the undergraduate student body at the university.
