As seen in the Washington Square News.
A recent undercover piece in the New York Observer highlighted the “unethical and inappropriate” conduct of Princeton University’s eating clubs – for example, at the University Cottage Club’s annual lingerie party, where male students, a la a recent Saturday Night Live skit, were nude but for boxes covering their genitals. The Observer’s piece criticized the eating clubs for using race and affluence, among other factors, as criteria for membership.
Step One: Cut a hole in a box.
Step Two: Put your ursine junk in that box.
Step Three: Thanks to an esteemed pedigree and a trust fund that would make Solomon blush, attend one of Princeton’s insular eating clubs and try, unsuccessfully, to make any of the well-affiliated, lingerie-clad Keira Knightley body doubles open the box.
Though such a situation would make anyone – Ivy League or not – lose his appetite, the New York Observer’s Spencer Morgan sucked it up, purged and went undercover (in a box?) as a WASP to find out the “real scoop” on Princeton’s variety of fraternity. The findings? Race, sex and pedigree play a part in the selection process of these clubs, and – oh God – one year, they actually let some no-legacy black girl in! Because she was prettier than a white girl!
What scandal!
Just a day later, four writers from The Daily Princetonian (totally independent from the university, they say) saw to it that the truth came out – that the Observer scooped them on their own turf, and that the reporting was “unfair” and “sensationalistic,” according to the people who frequent the clubs.
“The fact that specific sophomores were named and used to serve someone’s agenda against the club is infuriating. They’re just kids. They’ve done nothing to deserve this,” former Ivy Club president Wyatt Rockefeller told the Princetonian.
Actually, Wyatt, they did plenty to deserve this. They paraded their junk around in boxes at an eating club and allowed pictures to be taken of it.
Another anonymous Tiger (grr) e-mailed Morgan, claws extended:
“I have read finer pieces of reporting in high school newspapers. Your article, which I can only assume was meant to be a titillating gossip piece rather than a devastating exposé of the university eating clubs, relied on very few facts but rather depended heavily on innuendo, hearsay and questionable sources.”
Don’t we all love reading high school newspapers in our free time? Besides, I think our e-mailer just wanted to use the word “titillating” in reference to an article with the aforementioned bear-in-a-box image. The bullying letter continues, courtesy of the IvyGate blog:
“Perhaps you were just the sad kid in high school who kept to himself, but occupied his time ranting about what all the other kids were doing that was so wrong.”
Ah, so the truth comes out. All the cool kids were really skipping class to have their drivers take them shopping at Upper East Side boutiques, do lines off the edge of a Jackson Pollock canvas and get away with it because dad and the dean were “tight.”
Or was that the Olsen twins? Oh, never mind.
Either way, it’s clear Princetonians don’t want to be labeled as elite racists. But let’s not assume they all are – after all, one club was kind enough to admit its token minority for the year. Here at NYU, we’re so diverse and populous such racism is impossible. At our urban, counter-culture university, equality means every club has a token Caucasian! Elitism is a team contact sport, and we should all be equally free to conduct our own “Find the Illegal Immigrant” searches!
It seems that with seven times the enrollment of our second-closest Ivy neighbor – and by neighbor, I mean “God, did you really have to take New Jersey Transit?” – our deft strides toward Ivy-level elitism and exclusion ensure that even our Greek population is marginalized (and ridiculed, and pushed as far away from campus as possible). Eating clubs? Ha! We’ve got the Torch Club, so exclusive that lowly undergrads never even see the alumni who frequent it actually eating there. What’s that? Princeton banned secret societies? Well, our Red Dragon Society is so secret its own members don’t know what it’s for.
OK, so maybe we don’t go so far as to cattle-brand our students on campus. But watch out, Princeton. We’ve turned exclusion into an art – which is much more pretentious than a tradition.
Plus, no one at NYU would dare show up to a party mimicking that overblown Saturday Night Live skit. “Dick in a box”? Please.
Wait, Andy Samberg is a Tisch film alum? Shit.
Well, at least we know you need to wear clothing to surprise anyone by opening that box.
Andrew Nusca is a contributing writer and former news editor for WSN. E-mail him at opinion@nyunews.com.
Blowing the lid off Princeton’s box
As seen in the Washington Square News.
A recent undercover piece in the New York Observer highlighted the “unethical and inappropriate” conduct of Princeton University’s eating clubs – for example, at the University Cottage Club’s annual lingerie party, where male students, a la a recent Saturday Night Live skit, were nude but for boxes covering their genitals. The Observer’s piece criticized the eating clubs for using race and affluence, among other factors, as criteria for membership.
Step One: Cut a hole in a box.
Step Two: Put your ursine junk in that box.
Step Three: Thanks to an esteemed pedigree and a trust fund that would make Solomon blush, attend one of Princeton’s insular eating clubs and try, unsuccessfully, to make any of the well-affiliated, lingerie-clad Keira Knightley body doubles open the box.
Though such a situation would make anyone – Ivy League or not – lose his appetite, the New York Observer’s Spencer Morgan sucked it up, purged and went undercover (in a box?) as a WASP to find out the “real scoop” on Princeton’s variety of fraternity. The findings? Race, sex and pedigree play a part in the selection process of these clubs, and – oh God – one year, they actually let some no-legacy black girl in! Because she was prettier than a white girl!
What scandal!
Just a day later, four writers from The Daily Princetonian (totally independent from the university, they say) saw to it that the truth came out – that the Observer scooped them on their own turf, and that the reporting was “unfair” and “sensationalistic,” according to the people who frequent the clubs.
“The fact that specific sophomores were named and used to serve someone’s agenda against the club is infuriating. They’re just kids. They’ve done nothing to deserve this,” former Ivy Club president Wyatt Rockefeller told the Princetonian.
Actually, Wyatt, they did plenty to deserve this. They paraded their junk around in boxes at an eating club and allowed pictures to be taken of it.
Another anonymous Tiger (grr) e-mailed Morgan, claws extended:
“I have read finer pieces of reporting in high school newspapers. Your article, which I can only assume was meant to be a titillating gossip piece rather than a devastating exposé of the university eating clubs, relied on very few facts but rather depended heavily on innuendo, hearsay and questionable sources.”
Don’t we all love reading high school newspapers in our free time? Besides, I think our e-mailer just wanted to use the word “titillating” in reference to an article with the aforementioned bear-in-a-box image. The bullying letter continues, courtesy of the IvyGate blog:
“Perhaps you were just the sad kid in high school who kept to himself, but occupied his time ranting about what all the other kids were doing that was so wrong.”
Ah, so the truth comes out. All the cool kids were really skipping class to have their drivers take them shopping at Upper East Side boutiques, do lines off the edge of a Jackson Pollock canvas and get away with it because dad and the dean were “tight.”
Or was that the Olsen twins? Oh, never mind.
Either way, it’s clear Princetonians don’t want to be labeled as elite racists. But let’s not assume they all are – after all, one club was kind enough to admit its token minority for the year. Here at NYU, we’re so diverse and populous such racism is impossible. At our urban, counter-culture university, equality means every club has a token Caucasian! Elitism is a team contact sport, and we should all be equally free to conduct our own “Find the Illegal Immigrant” searches!
It seems that with seven times the enrollment of our second-closest Ivy neighbor – and by neighbor, I mean “God, did you really have to take New Jersey Transit?” – our deft strides toward Ivy-level elitism and exclusion ensure that even our Greek population is marginalized (and ridiculed, and pushed as far away from campus as possible). Eating clubs? Ha! We’ve got the Torch Club, so exclusive that lowly undergrads never even see the alumni who frequent it actually eating there. What’s that? Princeton banned secret societies? Well, our Red Dragon Society is so secret its own members don’t know what it’s for.
OK, so maybe we don’t go so far as to cattle-brand our students on campus. But watch out, Princeton. We’ve turned exclusion into an art – which is much more pretentious than a tradition.
Plus, no one at NYU would dare show up to a party mimicking that overblown Saturday Night Live skit. “Dick in a box”? Please.
Wait, Andy Samberg is a Tisch film alum? Shit.
Well, at least we know you need to wear clothing to surprise anyone by opening that box.
Andrew Nusca is a contributing writer and former news editor for WSN. E-mail him at opinion@nyunews.com.