History of Greek Life Racism at the University of Alabama

• #BamaRush references the sorority recruitment process at the University of Alabama and has become a viral sensation.
• The university was forcibly desegregated in 1963, but its Greek organizations remained largely white until 2013.
• Sisterhoods have since diversified, but exclusion and microaggressions persist.

The sensation known as #BamaRush was in full swing in August, with around 2,500 girls vying for a coveted spot in the prestigious University of Alabama sororities.

While Greek school life isn’t a new phenomenon, it took on a life of its own, exploding in fame and notoriety when it became a viral trend on TikTok in 2021. Potential new members, referred to as PNM , released daily outfits and shared their hopes and thoughts on the rushgiving viewers insight into the secret sorority process.

#BamaRush and #RushTok have since grown in popularity, attracting over 3.3 billion and 1.6 billion views respectively on TikTok. The trend also includes videos of sororities’ highly choreographed dance routines and cost breakdowns of PNM outfits. The University of Alabama rushing process was also the subject of the recent MAX documentary “Bama Rush.”

But what the dizzying tailoring of synchronized dancing and athletic Lululemon skirts belies are the thinly disguised roots of exclusion and segregation of the rushing process in Greek sororities.

“The Greek organizations are largely an outgrowth of the separatist culture that was prevalent in the American South,” Riché Richardson, a professor of African studies at Cornell University, told Insider. “The inclusion of blacks and people of color was something that ran counter to pervasive social preferences in the South for many years, and is very largely inherited from Jim Crow, which was based on racial hierarchies that presumed the ‘black inferiority’.

Rooted in exclusion

The first Greek fraternities were founded in the late 1700s on the basis of exclusion. At the time, universities were largely only open to wealthy, white male students.

These fraternities “reflected the politics and structures of the universities themselves, which often excluded black people,” Richardson said.

Many early fraternities had official “whites only” policies and retained these policies well into the 1960s and 1970s, according to Matthew Hughey, professor of sociology at the University of Connecticut.

The first sororities weren’t founded until about a century later, in the mid to late 1800s, and were seen as success stories of women who fought to overcome misogyny and restrictive social customs.

But even as Greek life has flourished and diversified over the years, fraternities and sororities in the United States have continued to struggle with issues of exclusion, particularly based on wealth and racial criteria.

Desegregated by force

Greek life at universities across the country has been criticized for its exclusionary practices, but the lack of diversity is particularly stark at the University of Alabama, which has a long history of segregation.

The university itself was forcibly desegregated in 1963, nearly a decade after the landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education, which banned segregation in schools. That year, Alabama Governor George Wallace had promised its supporters, “Segregation now! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!”

Wallace refused to desegregate the University of Alabama, even physically barring black students from entering his registration office door with the help of state troopers.

On June 10, 1963, President John F. Kennedy deployed the National Guard to the university to force its desegregation.

Greek life was only desegregated in 2013

Greek life at the University of Alabama, however, remained separate until 2013.

The school’s first sorority was founded in 1904, but not a single identifiable black woman was offered an offer — the formal invitation to join a sorority — until 2003.

“We took a big step today, and I hope it’s something we can build on,” Heather Schacht, then president of the Panhellenic Association, said Tuscaloosa News.

But traditionally white sororities have remained that way in the years since: None of the 16 Pan-Hellenic sororities has offered an offer to a black student, despite the fact that 90% of women who rush in are offered an offer, according to a 2014 Marie Claire story.

In 2013, an explosive article by the University of Alabama student newspaper, The Crimson White, revealed that the school’s all-white sororities still turned away black students. (The sororities named in the article denied the discriminatory practices.)

“We were told we weren’t taking black girls because it would be bad for our chapter — our reputation and our status,” Alpha Omicron Pi member Yardena Wolf told Marie Claire.

Phi Mu member Caroline Bechtel added that “anyone from a minority was automatically added” to a list of girls who were to be removed from the rush.

After the Crimson White story was published, the school decided to diversify its Greek organizations, and 14 minority women—ten of whom were black—were accepted that year.

Acts of racism persist

The sororities at the University of Alabama have diversified since they were desegregated: Data of the Crimson White showed that approximately 97% of the 33 potential new black members who completed the recruiting process received offers in 2021.

But reports suggest there is still ample room for growth. In 2019, only 1.2% – 88 women – of members of traditionally white sororities identified as black, while 90% were white.

“The (Panhellenic Council) is allowed to get away with its lack of diversity because no one is forcing them to correct their ways,” a black graduate said the Crimson White in 2020. She said she was only accepted into her sorority to meet the diversity quota.

In January 2018, videos of an Alpha Phi member — including one where she said, “I like how I act like I like black people because I hate (n-word)” — led to his expulsion from the sorority and the University. In 2021, two members of the same sorority, including its president, were removed from the organization after sending racist text messages in a group discussion.

Other graduates shared their experiences with racism and microaggressions in their sororities on TikTok. A woman to graduate from the University of Alabama in 2021 said his secret handshake for entering meetings was a handshake used in a Ku Klux Klan movie. A sorority member at another university in Alabama said she had to “repeatedly” remind the other members “not to use the n-word”, and that one member made comments about “certain breeds smelling bad”.

The importance of diversifying

Both students and experts called for a need for reflection and reform. Some schools to have abolished Greek life entirely.

But Greek life can play a positive role in campus life, including providing networks and a sense of community for students, Richardson said. In addition to the traditionally white sororities, the University of Alabama also has the nine historically black Greek-letter organizations, called Divine Nine.

The problem arises when organizations like sororities and fraternities “persist upon these backward forms of exclusion,” according to Richardson.

“It’s not just about sororities and fraternities, because the networks that are established in the undergraduate context carry over into the real world,” Richardson said. “Students are likely to become gatekeepers to the workplaces they go to, perpetuating ideas of minority exclusion. That’s when they become the enemy of progress for diversity and inclusion.”