End racial bias in fraternities, sororities: Column

• Campus paper suggested two black candidates for all-white sororities were rejected due to race.
• This is not just a problem at University of Alabama%2C but nationally.
• Federal government and national Greek organizations have roles to play to fix problem.

HUNTSVILLE, ALA. Were two candidates for membership to all-white sororities at the University of Alabama passed over because they were black? The campus newspaper, The Crimson White, recently suggested as much, embarrassing the university, which is celebrating the 50th anniversary of its desegregation.

University President Judy Bonner stepped in, resulting in invitations being sent to a few co-eds of color to join traditionally all-white sororities. While a good first step, the token gesture doesn't begin to address the complex racial issues plaguing Greek organizations — and not just in Tuscaloosa.

Until the late 1960s, white Greek organizations had whites-only membership clauses, according to Matthew Hughey, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Connecticut. But doing away with those clauses didn't end the de facto segregration. Black fraternities and sororities, on the other hand, have been admitting white members for decades, said Hughey, who was one of the few white collegians who defied social convention in 1996 to pledge with a historically black fraternity.

Though the anecdotal evidence overwhelmingly indicates that white Greek organizations remain essentially segregated, no data about their racial composition is kept by their governing bodies. In 2010, Hughey published a study he had conducted of eight white Greek chapters on three East Coast campuses. He found that the average percentage of non-white members was 3.8%. If that's integration, it's feeble at best.

Though integrating white sororities and fraternities might not rank as high on the civil rights agenda as addressing voting rights or racial profiling, there's no doubt that segregated Greek organizations have a destructive impact on U.S. culture.

"This history of segregation in the Greek system is incredibly harmful," U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance told The Crimson White. Her office is monitoring the Alabama situation closely, she said. "It's really shaped many of the business and social relationships that survived long past college, so it's in many ways a generational issue."

Greek organizations are pipelines to power. From 1900 to 2005, 63% of White House Cabinets members joined sororities or fraternities. Since 1910, more than 85% of U.S. Supreme Court justices have been Greek. Of the 19 presidents we've had in the 20th and 21st centuries, all but seven pledged to a national fraternity.

Segregation isn't the only black mark on the records of historically white Greek organizations. They frequently have been criticized and even sanctioned for behaviors that promote racist stereotypes.

The Alpha Delta fraternity and Tri Delta sorority at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., hosted a Bloods and Crips-themed party in July. Both organizations issued apologies after students and others expressed outrage. But I can't help but wonder why white Greeks at an Ivy League school wanted to pretend to dress up as black gang-bangers — and what that tells us about how they view black people and if they understand the seriousness of gang violence.

As for the University of Alabama, before the end of September, at least six women of color — four of whom are black — accepted invitations to join traditionally all-white sororities. Other universities should follow their example. More than that, the federal government and the national governing bodies of fraternities and sororities should begin tracking the racial compositions of all the national Greek organizations. This is the right thing to do whether or not discrimination by private Greek organizations is technically legal. Exposure of blatant discrimination would do a great deal to force these organizations to change.

There is nothing wrong with an organization being historically white, black or otherwise. But historically powerful organizations can't be allowed to undermine the racial justice and social progress this country has worked so hard to achieve.

David Person hosts WEUPTalk on WEUP 94.5 FM/1700 AM in Huntsville, Ala., and is a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors.

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