*A recruitment video from the University of Alabama’s Alpha Phi sorority managed to draw more than 700,000 YouTube views in a few days, but was eventually snatched down – along with the chapter’s Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr pages – after fierce backlash against its depiction of college women and its lack of diversity.
The video featured 72 mostly-white sorority sisters dancing and frolicking about, with many shots focusing on women in bikinis, rear ends and bare legs.
An opinion piece by AL.com writer A.L. Bailey called it “all so racially and aesthetically homogeneous and forced, so hyper-feminine, so reductive and objectifying, so Stepford Wives: College Edition.”
Bailey also called the video “worse for women than Donald Trump.”
Supporters of the video argue that other recruitment videos from sorority chapters at the University of Arizona and University of Miami similarly chose to focus solely on the physical attributes of the women.
In a statement, the University of Alabama said the video “is not reflective of UA’s expectations for student organizations to be responsible digital citizens.”
The controversy, meanwhile, has managed to boost recruitment for the UA chapter. It added a record 2,261 women to the sorority system on Saturday, which may be the largest pledge class in the nation.
A spokesperson for the university told AL.com that 214 of the women are “minorities.”
Watch the “Today” show’s report on the story below:
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