Malaklou's assertions are inaccurate

I am continuously baffled by Shadee Malaklou’s columns. I read them in The Chronicle, and she often mentions Duke, and I’ve even seen her around campus, but I’m still not convinced that we go to the same school. Her entire worldview seems to be limited to hanging out at Parizade and hooking up with fraternities. She has seen one small facet of the Duke world (and yes, it is small) and has decided to wallow in it without bothering to see what’s outside.

The fact of the matter is, not all Duke boys are out to get in your pants and kick you to the curb and not all Duke girls can be filed into “stilettos or pearls.” Most of the women I hang out with wear titanium sporks, so how does that fit your worldview? So Shadee represents one aspect of Duke, an aspect which a lot of people here don’t really give a damn about because we don’t wake up from a drunken haze with people we don’t know sleeping next to us, and we don’t hunt down freshman girls for sex, and we didn’t have a need to join a frat after freshman year because we found at Duke a culture that was accepting of a multitude of different people and worldviews.

So here’s a better warning for the freshman girls (and guys too): The Duke experience is not limited to Shadee Malaklou’s bedroom.

Andrew Thaler

Trinity ’07