The President of the United States, a United States Senator, and the University of Alabama student body were each a major force in higher education in 2013, according to The Huffington Post.

HuffPo just released its annual “Most Influential Forces in Higher Education” list, and made Bama students one of the eight “forces” it singled out.

From HuffPo:

Fifty years ago, it took the National Guard to get black students into the classrooms at the University of Alabama. This year, it took a new generation of undergraduates to challenge alumni and administrators to get rid of the “final barrier” to integration in campus life.

The student newspaper, the Crimson White, reported in September that sororities remained mostly divided along racial lines, and even though women in mostly white sororities wanted to offer bids to black students, white alumnae were preventing them from doing so. The story quickly attracted national attention, and women like Melanie Gotz came forward to speak out about what happened during Greek recruitment. Students, including an anti-racist group called the Mallet Assembly, kept up pressure until a compromise was reached.

In the end, the first bids ever were offered to black women from mostly white sororities.

Roll Tide.

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