<p>Sororities and Fraternities were, historically, white and christian. Many people who join pick a particular house because of a relative who belonged, and that relative is usually the same race and religion, prolonging the trend of all white/all christian. As stated above, they aren’t recruiting from the general population, but from the school’s population, so while the population of Alabama might be heavily black or hispanic or Asian, the population of UA is still 80% white.</p>
<p>Added to this, there are houses that are historically black, not part of Panhel or Interfraternity Council, and those statistics are not included when Panhel or IC reports. Legacies from those houses might want to join the house their parents or grandparents were part of to continue their traditions.</p>
<p>I was in a sorority, and we did have one minority member (and several Jewish members, which was considered a minority). That was representative of our university at the time but had nothing to do with those people joining (I don’t remember the topic EVER being discussed. My daughter is hoping to join my sorority, and we’ve never even considered that her race (Chinese) would keep her out. Her school is about 25% minority, and the sorority houses seem to have that same mix.</p>