First, some background: my father and mother are greek alumni of Mississippi State University and The University of Alabama, respectively, so I know some things about Southern greek life and was strongly encouraged to join a fraternity here. I grew up in a college town where men go through a formal recruitment to join a fraternity like sorority women do. I have been exposed to both ends of the spectrum of greek life. That being said, I can see both sides of the debate concerning block seating.

I want to talk about the gender “discrimination” in block seating. I agree that the fact that 28 fraternities applied for block seating is extremely disproportionate to the one sorority that applied. However, there was no rule stating that sororities could not apply for seating; a majority simply chose not to. Why? Because a sorority member would receive 0.7 percent of a seat with a fraternity male who was her date. The greek women groups on campus chose to not have block seating; therefore, they do not have block seating.

Coming from the North, I will say that UA fraternities and sororities are significantly more segregated by race than ones there. This, however, is de facto and not written into greek bylaws. The racial segregation seems to be a problem more rooted in the greek system itself, rather than in the block seating system. I am not saying fraternities and sororities are racist, because they definitely are not. I am simply stating that Campus Labs (the third-party responsible for block seating scores) did not segregate.

If fewer minority and women groups apply for block seating, then it only makes sense that there are fewer of them in the block seating area.

I attended my first UA football game as a student last weekend, and it was awesome. I showed up about two hours early (freshman mistake) and found a seat in the sixth row in the SE part of the student section. These were great seats for the game, but came at the cost of sitting in the stadium for two hours before the three hour game. Those in a fraternity, however, showed up less than an hour before game time and got good seats in the end zone. Block seating also did not seem to “end” 45 minutes before the start of the game. I did find this to be a little unfair, but I was expecting it.

After halftime, some people started to leave, which happens at most college football games. The surprising thing was that the majority of those who left were in the block seating section. They sat in their reserved seats for only half the game, while others sat the whole game in the upper bowl of the student section. This, again, seemed a little unfair, but it was expected.

The only concern with the seating arrangement is that the AFROTC, which, according to the CW article, “Map changes with process,” on September 10, scored fourth using the new system. They are, conversely, in the back section in a row with the 25th-, 27th-, 30th- and 32nd- ranked organizations. Since SGA removed the human element, AFROTC should be farther up – a lot farther up.

So, I understand that the section seating is tradition and makes sense because not many groups sit en masse like fraternities and sororities do. If people want a change, a solution would be to include more student groups beyond the greek groups, rather than completely removing the block seating. There would also have to be regulations for the definition of “group” so people do not join groups only to get block seating.

I am not writing this to hate on the greek system because I believe it is very beneficial, not only to those in the organizations, but also to the rest of the school and to the community. I just believe there are better ways to deal with this situation and better people to call upon to fix the issue than the fraternities and sororities.

I had wished to remain anonymous because of the polarity of this issue; however, this is forbidden by the CW, which I understand. Like I said before, I do think fraternities and sororities are great organizations beyond the campus and college years. I do not want to hinder any possible chances I have of getting into one of these groups because of its great benefits – even aside from block seating. After considering it, I realized this is my opinion, not yours. Also, I am not bashing the greek life; I am actually saying it has the right to block seating and has done nothing wrong.

Rob Grady is a freshman majoring in civil engineering.