Saturday, May 14, 2005
Politically correct Princeton "bicker"
I belonged to The Tiger Inn, one of the selective clubs. Which just goes to show that selectivity is a fairly flexible concept when Princeton eating clubs are concerned.
Here is a particularly flattering picture of The Glorious Tiger Inn:
Back in "the day," the selective clubs were very un-PC. We had lots of jocks, many of the stupid little student behavior scandals that periodically rock American universities, and three of the selective clubs -- including TI -- were "no girls allowed." Against that backdrop, I was quite surprised to read this in the back of South Park Conservatives:
The more politically correct culture prevailing at other schools, particularly the Ivies, can be a problem for conservative students. Several first-year Princeton students, for instance, believed that being seen as a conservative would make it harder for them to be chosen for membership by one of the school's prestigiious "bicker" eating clubs -- key sources of social standing on a status-conscious campus and the places to party. "I've avoided writing any major articles for the Tory because I'm afraid it could hurt me when it reaches the time for me to bicker," one freshman confessed. Two other students hestitated to talk with me for the same reason, while a third said that she too wouldn't write for the Tory until she had made it into a club.
Say it ain't so!
13 Comments:
By 
Pile On®, at
Sat May 14, 02:33:00 PM:
Forgive me I went to a land grant public university with a tradition of excellence. In football.
So what is it? A fraternity? A cafeteria? Or a place to have a kegger?
By TigerHawk, at
Sat May 14, 05:04:00 PM:
Something like 150 years ago, fraternities were banned from Princeton. Something like 130 years ago, elevan undergraduates were expelled from "the Commons" -- the dining hall -- for starting a food fight. They rented a building known as "Ivy Hall," hired a chef, and started The Ivy Club, Princeton's first eating club. This seemed like a great idea to the undergraduates of the day, and over the next thirty years or so something like 20 eating clubs were founded. They admitted only juniors and seniors, and back in the day they had strong individual character and social status. Old Princeton alums can declaim on the attributes of the eating clubs at some length.
Anyway, at some point in the early seventies most of the eating clubs began admitting women (Princeton only admitted women in 1969). More than half of them also began admitting new members by lottery, rather than via the bicker.
The eating clubs reside in big buildings like fraternities, except that very few members -- usually only a couple of officers -- live there. That means that most of the space is given over to common area. You take your meals there, drink a lot of beer (at least back before the safety-fascists raised the drinking age), shoot pool, play video games, watch TV, fart, barf, sleep on the sofa, read, shoot the breeze, etc.
By Sluggo, at
Sun May 15, 09:31:00 AM:
It's been awhile since my college days, but if I remember correctly I think you left something out. These eating clubs are co-ed, aren't they?
By Pile On®, at
Sun May 15, 10:26:00 AM:
I am almost certain I ate food in college, but it was not high on my list of priorities.
By 
, at
Sun May 15, 01:51:00 PM:
South Park Conservatives? As in the cartoon or is that a neighborhood? If it's the former Trey and Matt will retch...
I'm scratching my head re: the excerpted text. As an African American, and an former officer of Tiger Inn and thus a person who keeps abreast of both the minority students' pulse through the Alumni Association and that of Tiger Inn, I scratching my head. The clubs, indeed the five "selective" ones--like combo frat/sororities where yeah, you eat, you have parties, you play pool, you tap kegs, you tap each other (heterosexually for most of the kids)--aren't exactly "politically correct."
Perhaps the article merely relays the misconception/ignorance of incoming freshman? Minority freshman have heard the clubs are bastions of Klan activity at worst, playgrounds for the Bush Twins or junior Anne Coulters (now that's a gross concept) at best.
Or perhaps its the usual red-herring, reverse-discrimination/wolfcrying artifice you hear from the religious right, et al., designed to make folks look like the victim.
Come on. The reasons for blackballing or fear at bicker are same as those at any other college's frat or sorority rush, or joining a line (if a black frat/sorority) or joining any other organization. Somebody boned somebody else's girlfriend/boyfriend. Somebody was queer/straight/bi on the down-low and their cover's been blown. Somebody habitually took too much pizza and didn't chip in. Somebody thinks they are too cute. Somebody smokes too much weed. Somebody doesn't smoke enough weed. Banal stuff like that. I am old and I can say with glee that not much has changed.
By TigerHawk, at
Sun May 15, 03:57:00 PM:
Tool is not merely an African-American former officer of The Tiger Inn, back in the day he was its bicker chairman. This made him something of a pioneer, in roughly the same sense that Condaleeza Rice is a pioneer. And he knows whereof he speaks.
By , at
Mon May 16, 09:35:00 AM:
If one needs to be PC to join the Tiger Inn, the world has collapsed entirely. If that be the case we need to summon a certain Ranger (and TI alum) to terrorize the bicker committee with a chain saw.
In the day, we had Polish revolutionaries, country-rockers, clean-cut lightweight crew types, the occasional preppie and a few beyond description (TPT).
If the PC police have infiltrated as far as the bicker process, it's a shame. I'll bet the Ivy and Cheeser boards don't know about it!
Boy do I sound (and feel) old.
TIGOBLUE
By , at
Mon May 16, 11:56:00 AM:
Kudos for Tool and Tigoblue for setting the record straight. If anything, the selective clubs were/are the red states in a blue state universe (albeit with pockets of blue-state activity). Tool set forth the right criteria of social unacceptability for admission to a selective club -- you basically had to have barfed on the club president's girlfriend while stealing his blue blazer at the same time and handing out copies of The Daily Worker. In my day, we had grandsons of coal miners, sons of Cuban immigrants, first kids in the family to go to college, sons of captains of industry and proctors in admiralty, guys who could throw a football a long way and the preppies who actually wore madras shorts. And most weren't politically correct -- not by a long shot.
Who are these writers kidding?
FOG
(Flatulent Old Grad)
By , at
Tue Jan 03, 11:06:00 AM:
Hello! Super work performed. Top PAGE, further so!
By , at
Thu Jan 12, 12:03:00 PM:
It's amazing what one can run in to on Google.
I may be the "Polish revolutionary" mentioned above.
By , at
Mon Mar 06, 11:07:00 AM:
I just want to let you all know that the glorious tiger inn is living strong, and much like the preceeding classes we have a wide variety of individuals making an extremely diverse club.
As far as the bicker process goes, Tool is pretty much right on the money about stuff, theres a long list of semi-bs reasons that some people are not accepted to their club of choice, other people get hosed just because theyre not fun people to be around. I do not believe that whether or not someone is a writer for the Tory would sway our decision on letting them into the club, although what they actually have to say may be of a little more importance (e.g. one cannot write scathing articles about TI in the Prince and expect to get through bicker). We still have a very exciting bicker process, and for a more recent update we have just admitted an excellent class for the next two years of TI.
All that being said, I would like to invite all alumni that read this to come back and visit the club this spring. As one of the new officers, I am extremely excited about the club and the direction it is going in. So come check it out...and in case you are coming to reunions, plans are in the works to have an event for all TI members during one afternoon of reunions, something I dont believe we have ever done before. Any other questions about that or the current situation of ti, email miller@princeton.edu and hopefully we will be able to help you out with some answers.
By , at
Tue Jul 18, 07:10:00 AM:
In my day (early 80s), if you went to Bicker regularly and didn't do anything real uncool, you were in. As simple as that. People who got hosed were those nobody could recall seeing at Bicker.
And, of course, it wasn't like anybody was forced to drink alcohol (although I do admit seeing the world through a haze of Blatz - or was it Pabst Blue Ribbon - through parts of my junior year). For one thing, TI was the lightweight crew bastion, and those guys didn't drink for much of the year - and some didn't drink at all for religious or other reasons.
One thing that struck me a couple of years ago, when I visited the Glorious at Reunions, was that there was no furniture downstairs - none at all, nor was there as much as a foosball table. In our day, we had two foos tables, a pool table, a billiards table, a ping-pong table, video games, loads of tables and chairs in the tap room, and a house manager every year who'd kill you if you damaged anything. We even had a grand piano upstairs. What happened, guys?
BTW, as far as black officers at TI go, my sophomore year the club was practically being run by the then-VP, known as Byron, and that was the best year I can recall at the Glorious. Not that anybody really cared at the time what color anybody at the club was.
By , at
Thu Oct 12, 05:50:00 PM:
While PC was invented at Princeton, it hadn't reached TI when I left in the early 80s. I stopped by this spring on a lark and it seemed like a shadow of its former self. The basement is bare; it was also hopping "back in the day." We had the best parties on The Street. Anybody who was there for "OPEC Nite" will know what I mean....
