Black University of Alabama students join traditionally white sororities

University president reveals 15 black and minority students are offered places at tradionally white sororities after student newspaper exposed segregation

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University of Alabama students protest the university's segregated sorority system
University of Alabama students protest the university's segregated sorority system on campus in Tuscaloosa. Photograph: Dave Martin/AP

Black students at the University of Alabama have accepted offers to join traditionally white sororities, after a week of protests about segregation among the campus's greek organizations.

Judy Bonner, the president of the university, said on Friday that 11 black students and three students from other minority groups received bids, or invitations, to join historically white sororities. Four black students and two students from other minority backgrounds have accepted those invitations, Bonner said. She expected the numbers to rise as the academic year continues.

"I am confident that we will achieve our objective of a Greek system that is inclusive, accessible and welcoming to students of all races and ethnicities," Bonner said in a video statement. "We will not tolerate anything less."

Halle Lindsay announced on Twitter that she is to join Alpha Gamma Delta, and Cami McCant, a senior, accepted a bid to Kappa Alpha Theta. Both students were widely congratulated on social media.

The university acknowledged that its sororities were segregated after the student newspaper, the Crimson White, reported that black candidates had been turned down because of their race. On Wednesday, students marched at the University of Alabama campus to protest the segregation. School officials condemned the system and mandated a series of changes designed to promote desegregation.

In its original article, the Crimson White reported that a strong recruit for Alpha Gamma Delta had been barred by alumnae. One sorority member, Melanie Gotz, said: "You know, I would say there were probably five people in the room that disagreed with everything that was being said. The entire house wanted this girl to be in Alpha Gam. We were just powerless over the alums."

An alum denied the allegations in the report and the Alpha Gamma Delta national headquarters issued a statement saying that the sorority "prohibits discrimination on the basis of race in all of its activities including recruitment".

After the revelations, Bonner ordered that sororities affiliated to an umbrella organisation begin a recruitment campaign where new members can join at any time. The maximum size for campus groups was increased to 360 people, to improve the chances of aspiring members.

"While we will not tell any group who they must pledge, the University of Alabama will not tolerate discrimination of any kind," Bonner said, in a video statement released on Tuesday.

University of Alabama sororities have been segregated since the institution first accepted black students, 50 years ago. Of the 33,602 students enrolled in the school last year, 13% were black. In 2003, the first and only black woman pledged to one of the university's traditionally white sororities – Gamma Phi Beta – through the formal recruitment process. The school's traditionally African-American greek organizations integrated in the 1980s, according to The Crimson White.

A university trustee, John England Jr, a state court judge and former member of the Alabama supreme court, confirmed that his step-daughter was one of the two black women who attempted to join an all-white sorority this year but were rejected.

Trustee Paul Bryant Jr and the Alabama governor Robert Bentley publicly criticized the university's segregated greek organizations.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

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