A look into Greek life’s influence on UC Berkeley ASUC elections

Sydney Wolfe | Senior Staff

As the 2025 ASUC elections are underway this week, UC Berkeley has become saturated with candidates tabling on campus, campaign posters and Instagram reposts of platforms. Among all these promotional efforts, the question of Greek life’s influence over elections has again resurfaced.

Comments on the seemingly disproportionate representation of members of fraternities and sororities — in particular, UC Berkeley’s Alpha Phi, or APhi, chapter — in the ASUC body recur yearly. Much similar to past years, the UC Berkeley YikYak page has become permeated with anger towards candidates with Greek-life affiliations.

In the past two years, the ASUC presidents were both members of Alpha Phi. Current senator and presidential candidate Maitri Halappa aims to be the third of this lineage. Nearly 11% of elected ASUC positions over the past four years have been filled by members of Alpha Phi.

While often not made a central part of platforms, the existence of many Greek-affiliated candidates in ASUC races is undeniable.

To quantify the Greek life to ASUC pipeline, The Daily Californian created a dataset of campaign platforms, personal social media accounts and candidate statements of ASUC representatives for the past four years. Here’s what we found.

While around 3% to 4% of the undergraduate population participates in Greek life annually, 30% to 40% of each ASUC assembly belongs to a house.

Candidate Maitri Halappa’s campaign manager Roman Umnas, said a possible explanation for this overrepresentation is that candidates will inherently use their community networks to raise support.

“[ASUC elections are] a lot about networks and who you know … With the prevalence of Greek life, just within all aspects of Berkeley … it just sort of pervades a lot of what we do here and as students. So it does sort of make sense that there is sort of a correlation,” Umnas said.

Considering the consistently low voter turnout for ASUC elections, it becomes clear how mobilizing the large personal communities found in Greek life could have an outsize influence on elections.

While sororities and fraternities are not allowed to endorse specific candidates, any individual within these organizations can personally endorse candidates.

Despite the potential influence of Greek life, candidates have also acknowledged the power of caucuses and other campus communities.

Non-Greek affiliated presidential candidate Abigail Verino said that while Greek life does have an influence on elections, she does not consider herself disadvantaged in the race, highlighting her endorsements by prominent groups such as the Transfer Student Caucus, the Latiné Caucus and the Southeast Asian Caucus.

As students speculate of the potential existence of Greek influence, many ignore the qualifications of candidates, Umnas said.

“All of the other things that Maitri has been involved with and done are what has set her up to be in this position, and people love to discount that,” added Umnas. Halappa was unable to be reached for an interview.

The high influence of Greek life, however, has raised some concerns about diversity. “We know that Greek life wasn’t historically made for students of color,” Verino alleged, citing the lack of affordability and accessibility of Greek life.

Whether Greek does sway the election or not, Verino said, “it is a very strong voting base and it does encompass a wide variety of identities, so it’s really important to have Greek-life voices within the ASUC.”

Yuka Iriguchi contributed data collection to this article.

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