Disillusioned at Duke

[hoosier]

Incident doesn't bode well for 'best and brightest'

By Megan Bode
FOR THE TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Tuesday, February 22, 2005

Duke University.

It used to be that whenever I breathed the name of this school, I did so in reverence. All I could picture were intelligent students hungry for knowledge, buildings with Gothic-style architecture, renowned professors and an amazing athletics program.

As a high school student, it was my dream to gain acceptance and receive my college education at Duke, in Durham, N.C. When I told anyone of this, he or she would laugh and pat me on the back, explaining that I would have to work hard to get there, that such a fine institution took only the best and I would need to prove myself. I knew this, and I wanted desperately to be a part of it. Most days, I still think of my college the same way as I did in high school. I'll be walking to class and pass the chapel, our landmark, standing tall over the campus, visible from almost anywhere in the city, and I get chills up my spine, thinking: How did I get this lucky?

I really do love this school. I love the fact that my classes make me work hard and professors make me reach deep. I love that kids spend two months in a tent for basketball tickets, and that after a big win we burn benches in a bonfire on the quad. I love arguing with kids my age about politics or foreign affairs.


But sometimes I don't feel quite the same about it anymore, disillusioned by stories and occurrences that cause me to question exactly what it is that Duke stands for. In January, for example, an off-campus party broken up by the police became a highly publicized national news story. The reason? Several women had been found in the basement, covered in baby oil and wearing string bikinis, wrestling in a tiny pool in front of a crowded room of frat boys.

Although many people would fail to find this shocking, would simply write it off as a bunch of college kids letting loose and having fun, I can't understand this logic. It's one thing to hang out at a frat party, to have a few beers and talk with friends. It is entirely another for these women "Duke students" to make a spectacle of themselves for the purpose of entertaining their male counterparts.

After talking with friends and classmates about the incident, I couldn't believe some of the arguments to the contrary. I was told how incredible it was that girls had finally reached the point where they were free to do whatever they pleased, to have as much fun as the boys. A lot of kids thought that the story was hilarious, good publicity for Duke as a bit of a party school as well as an academically rigorous institution.

Maybe I'm a little old-fashioned in my beliefs, but I feel the girls have taken a step back thanks to this "freedom," have placed themselves once more in a position of inferiority and near-subservience to their male classmates.

How do these women attend class on Monday with the same boys that cheered them on in such a contest Friday night? How can they expect to be treated as equals when three days prior they were content to be treated as objects? At a place where the kids are supposed to be the best and the brightest, I'm stunned that things like this happen. And it's not just this one incident -- there are many more, very similar, less-publicized events, that are understood and even accepted by society.

If this is the best and the brightest of today, then I'm a little concerned for the world of tomorrow.