![]() “She truly spoke truth to power,” Spillers said.Ĭomposed of the most prestigious, traditionally white fraternities and sororities on campus, The Machine is said to date back a century or more. Student government President Elliot Spillers - an independent elected without the support of the Machine - praised Smith for being brave enough to go public. She cited privacy laws in refusing to say whether any formal complaints had been filed but said school officials can investigate potential problems on their own. ![]() University spokeswoman Deborah Lane said administrators investigate all alleged violations of the student conduct code, which bans intimidation and coercion. The fraternity president who serves as Senate speaker did not return an email seeking comment on Smith’s resignation. It suppresses people’s opinions and they use a scare tactic to keep people on their side,” Smith told The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday. Smith, a sophomore honors student from Huntsville, wrote that she no longer could be part of an organization that uses pressure and intimidation to control campus for the benefit of fraternity and sorority members, who comprise about 25 percent of the university’s 36,000 students. Her excitement turned quickly to uneasiness, and it ended this week in the most unthinkable of ways: She publicly exposed The Machine in a first-person article published by the campus newspaper and she resigned from the group. Knowing of the group since high school, 19-year-old Alex Smith was happy to be elected to the campus Senate as a representative of her Machine-aligned sorority earlier this year. Yet the homecoming queen and student government president generally are elected through bloc voting run by the group, and alumni of Machine-affiliated Greek organizations have gone on to hold offices including governor and U.S. Machine members don’t acknowledge its existence, and the university doesn’t recognize it as an official group. But it’s a powerful force at the University of Alabama, functioning within the shadows of what is billed as the largest community of fraternities and sororities on a U.S. In Tuscaloosa, a group called “The Machine” may not rise to Ivy League heights of prestige or mystique. Harvard University has Final Clubs, known as a grooming place for the rich and powerful. TUSCALOOSA - The fabled Skull and Bones society is the stuff of lore at Yale University.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |