Alabama sorority recruitment video draws backlash, university response
Published 1:30 pm Tuesday, August 18, 2015
- A recruitment video posted by the Alpha Phi, Beta Mu Chapter has gotten a lot of negative attention.
A video aimed at recruiting women for a Southern sorority was criticized online this week for its lack of diversity and depiction of women, with one columnist calling it “worse for women than Donald Trump.”
University of Alabama’s Alpha Phi sorority produced the recruitment video for ‘Bid Day’ to entice young women to join their chapter. Featuring young, sometimes scantily clad, white women, the video has drawn a major backlash on social media and from news organizations.
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Days after the video was first posted on YouTube, the members of Alpha Phi deleted it from the group’s YouTube account, seemingly due to the negative response.
“This video is not reflective of UA’s expectations for student organizations to be responsible digital citizens,” University of Alabama’s Associate Vice President for University Relations, Deborah Lane, said in a statement. “It is important for student organizations to remember what is posted on social media makes a difference, today and tomorrow, on how they are viewed and perceived.”
The first person to publicly criticize the video was A.L. Bailey, a writer for AL.com, who said it was devaluing women and minorities in a column titled “Bama sorority video worse for women than Donald Trump.”
“No, it’s not a slick Playboy Playmate or Girls Gone Wild video,” Bailey wrote for AL.com. “It’s a sorority recruiting tool gaining on 500,000 views in its first week on YouTube. It’s a parade of white girls and blonde hair dye, coordinated clothing, bikinis and daisy dukes, glitter and kisses, bouncing bodies, euphoric hand-holding and hugging, gratuitous booty shots, and matching aviator sunglasses. It’s all so racially and aesthetically homogeneous and forced, so hyper-feminine, so reductive and objectifying, so Stepford Wives: College Edition. It’s all so… unempowering.”
However, others have defended the video as a true representation of the sorority life and blame political correctness for the furor.
“honestly, the Alabama Alpha Phi vid made me want to join greek life,” Twitter user baioncé posted online. “which is what it’s supposed to do, because it’s called marketing.”
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I’m sorry, I don’t see the outrage for the #Alabama #AlphaPhi recruiting video. Diversity? Don’t shame people into diversity. I doesn’t work
— Infobahn (@Infobahn) August 18, 2015
This is not the first time the University of Alabama’s greek system has come under fire. In 2013, allegations of systemic racial discrimination were levied at the school’s sororities and fraternities. An investigation conducted last year showed traditionally all-white sororities at the school rejected women of color as pledges.
According to Bailey, that was made clear by the Alpha Phi’s recruitment video.
“Are they recruiting a diverse and talented group of young women embarking on a college education? ,” Bailey wrote. “Upon first or even fifth glance, probably not. Hormonal college-aged guys? Most assuredly yes. Older, male YouTube creepers? A resounding yes.”
While attention has been focused on Alpha Phi, their video is markedly similar to many other sorority recruitment videos, both from schools in other states, and to other sororities on the same campus.
However, following this year’s Bid Day, Alabama released numbers to show minority recruitment is going up. According to UA, of the total number of women who accepted bids, 214 were minorities, a number that increased by nearly 13 percent since last year. And, the number of African American students who received bids increased by 19 percent, up to 25.
“We are very proud of our sororities and their commitment to providing a positive and enthusiastic welcome to our newest students,” Dr. David Grady, vice president of Student Affairs at University of Alabama, said in a press release. “The week of Recruitment is a good time to meet new friends and get involved on campus. The fraternity and sorority community at UA provides multiple opportunities for students to become leaders and engaged members of their communities, now and for a lifetime.”
