SGA Senate Votes to End Resolution Supporting Greek System Integration
Mark Hammontree, Crimson White, March 21, 2014
At the final session of the 2013-14 SGA Senate, a proposed resolution in support for full integration of the University of Alabama Greek system was sent to committee instead of receiving a vote. As a result, the resolution died with the end of the Senate’s term.
Katie Smith, the lead sponsor and author of Resolution #R-XX-14, introduced the resolution to the floor, but per Senate rules, a period of technical questions followed, Chisholm Allenlundy, another sponsor of the resolution, said.
Allenlundy said that following the technical questions period, a senator moved for the resolution to be sent to committee. At the beginning of the meeting, Speaker of the Senate Cole Adams informed the senators that any legislation or resolutions that were not voted on would die because the next meeting of the Senate would be of the 2014-15 Senate.
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Of the senators in attendance, 27 senators voted yes to keep the bill from being voted on, 5 no, and 2 voted present.
Allenlundy said he thinks the resolution failed to pass because some of the Greek senators may have felt the wording was unfairly critical of the Greek system.
“I think ultimately the reason that it failed to pass was it gave the impression, I think maybe, that–to a lot of the senators–that maybe we were attempting to disparage the Greek community, you know, which wasn’t the case,” Allenlundy said. “Ultimately, the resolution was to just encourage further integration based on diversity, specifically racial diversity on our campus, which I think a lot of people would agree with.”
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The resolution can be rewritten and reintroduced during the next Senate’s term, which will begin after spring break, but the resolution that Smith introduced died with the vote to send it to committee.
“I think that this reflects our SGA poorly but also accurately,” Smith said. “I am not surprised. I don’t believe that I put anyone in a catch-22. They chose to vote on it and they chose to vote it down.”
[Editor’s Note: For more on Greek segregation at the University of Alabama, see our feature story here.]
