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Archibald's temptation

Fog blanketed Princeton's campus like a mask as I hustled toward Prospect Avenue. Earlier in the day, I had received a mysterious email from St. Archibald’s League, which proclaimed the group to be “Princeton’s newest, coolest, and most exclusive club” and invited me to its “admission events” at 5 Prospect Ave. — a humorously sophisticated way of indicating Campus Club.

Upon arrival, I was greeted by a bouncer for St. Archibald’s Bicker, as well as two people protesting the club. The protesters shouted, “Don’t let them fool you into thinking that you’re not worthy!" to which the bouncer replied, “The real world doesn’t accept everyone, and this only prepares you for a competitive, capitalistic society.” I chuckled at the exchange, realizing it to be a joke, but the conversation sent a chill through me nonetheless, as I recognized its realism.

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My group of 12 was ushered into Campus Club, and we all underwent a simulated Bicker process, during which interviewers asked us preposterous questions that apparently were taken from real Bicker events in the past. “Based on my appearance,” someone asked, “how many people do you think I have hooked up with?” “Who in the group do you think has the richest family?” After everyone was “admitted,” we were then seated around a table and given invitations to join Club Revolución, an anti-Bicker student group.

Although St. Archibald’s League was a cleverly crafted parody of every Princeton stereotype ever, Club Revolución’s message honed in with laser-like precision on the idiosyncrasies of Bicker eating clubs: Their unnecessary exclusionary practices create unwarranted power structures on a campus that otherwise seeks to proclaim itself inclusive.

Bicker, of course, is the annual event that sophomores undergo to join an eating club, the quasi-fraternity organizations that occupy large mansions on Prospect Avenue. Some have interview-only Bicker and others feature competitive games. While some clubs have eliminated Bicker, six remain: Ivy Club, Cannon Dial Elm Club, Tower Club, Cottage Club, Tiger Inn, and Cap & Gown Club.

Complaints about elitism in Bicker are not uncommon amongst students. A few months ago, I attended a feedback group for University Dining Services; I remember hearing from a few upperclassmen who lamented how the eating clubs’ divisive admissions process led to the breakup of their groups of friends. Freshmen, meanwhile, often tend to lose contact with their sophomore friends as they retreat into their clubs’ bubbles.

The pass system is also a point of ire for underclassmen. Eating club members are given a limited number of passes that allow non-members to attend their parties. This creates a power structure in there are two classes of students: the privileged few with passes and those without them.

Freshmen regularly complain about their need to ask multiple upperclassman friends for club passes, like a beggar on the Street. For the students who are not as well connected to upperclassmen — usually because they were not accepted into a tightly knit dance group or nationally ranked competitive club with its own overly selective tryouts — they may have to wait a few years to get passes until their friends gain acceptance to eating clubs.

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Despite all of the criticism directed toward the University's six exclusive eating clubs, students continue to participate in Bicker. Clubs like St. Archibald’s captivate our attention because of the promises they make to us, if we are so lucky as to be accepted. Future prospects of wealth, status, and social connections tempt Princetonians like the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. Yet, by partaking in this annual ritual, Princetonians only preserve a pseudo-elitism on campus — to their own detriment.

For example, Bicker eating clubs claim that students will gain invaluable career connections by joining them. But, when one goes to a college where everyone is of a high caliber, making these connections is possible in almost any organization.

Still, the defenders of Bicker claim, like St. Archibald’s bouncer, that the process prepares students for the real world and for high profile jobs where getting hired depends upon one’s ability to converse urbanely. Perhaps that is true, but it is also true that this environment endures because institutions like the eating clubs at Princeton perpetuate it.

Elitism exists at Princeton because we allow it to exist; Bicker is only one of its many manifestations. It is fueled by our natural desire to want to be included and accepted by our peers.

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Throughout our lives thus far, we have searched for others who are like us. Now that we have overcome the innumerable odds of the University’s admissions and are gathered on a single campus, we will do anything possible to ensure that we “fit in.” This desperation permits eating clubs to subjugate us with their arbitrarily exclusive methods, until we can become the masters ourselves and do the same to the next class.

As Senator Daniel Webster said, “There is always room at the top.” Apparently, this is not true of social life at Princeton, where “the top” is limited by the number of people who can be in it — not that there should be a “top” to social life in the first place.

Bicker and the eating clubs may never go away — they have too many alumni and too much money propping them up. But St. Archibald’s message is still valid. We do not have to continue this system that rejects our fellow classmates and dictates our social lives. After all, these “elite” clubs are only as powerful as we allow them to be. I, for one, will not allow them to hold dominion over me.

Liam O’Connor is a freshman from Wyoming, Del. He can be reached at lpo@princeton.edu.