Influential Secret Society Blamed For Problems On Campus Dodges Transparency Push, Victims and family reveal how lives were devastated by Rotherham grooming scandal

Influential Secret Society Blamed For Problems On Campus Dodges Transparency Push
Tyler Kingkade 04/01/2015

The University of Alabama student government voted down a proposal last week to establish political parties, which could have forced a well-known secret society, blamed for many social ills on campus, to go public.

In a 21-9 vote on March 26, the Student Government Association Senate shot down a resolution that called for allowing students to set up political parties for on-campus elections. Currently, UA rules forbid official political parties. However, an underground society called "The Machine" is widely known to pick and endorse candidates and allegedly intimidates and harasses its opponents.

According to the United Alabama Project, a student group that came up with the proposal, all but one of the senators who voted against the resolution were backed by the Machine. None of them spoke publicly in opposition to the resolution during the senate meetings....

The Machine has existed for roughly a century, and is comprised of members from select fraternities and sororities. The group directs its members, and by extension their fellow fraternity brothers and sorority sisters, to vote for candidates of their choosing. The Machine has even been known to influence local political elections, according to The New York Times.

Students have accused the Machine of being a major reason why UA sororities were still excluding black women from joining in 2013, as well as for acting as a roadblock in subsequent attempts by other SGA representatives to push the Greek system toward integration in 2014....
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/01/machine-senators-alabama_n_6988690.html

Victims and family reveal how lives were devastated by Rotherham grooming scandal
Wednesday 01 April 2015

The way lives were devastated by the Rotherham grooming scandal has been laid bare in a new collection of first-hand accounts.

Child victims made pregnant by rapists, fathers racked with guilt and even families of convicted abusers have bravely shared their harrowing stories.

Liam Harron with the report co authored with Chrissy Meleady

The new compilation, called ‘Voices of Despair, Voices of Hope’, is designed to provide an outlet for those who have suffered directly as a result of the scandal....

The daughter of a man convicted of child abuse also shared her story for the report. She said their family have been condemned by their community, while she has been threatened with revenge rape attacks....
http://www.sheffieldtelegraph.co.uk/news/local/victims-and-family-reveal-how-lives-were-devastated-by-rotherham-grooming-scandal-1-7186419