There goes the neighborhood (Ivy League style)

Now, this topic is a personal favourite of mine. It combines every element of a stellar WTH story: over-privileged white kids, alcohol, knives, the ghetto, and the Ivy Leagues. What’s not to love? I remember laughing at this story when it first made news (albeit in the Daily Pennsylvanian...calling that venerable literary institution “news” may be a bit generous, even for a Friday...) Anyway, it’s still funny, years later.

I should ‘fess up, first. I am an Ivy League dropout. I have my reasons (I should note, for my professional reputation’s sake, that grades were not one of them. I left with a 4.0, which wasn’t destroyed until Lera the Russian Grammar Nazi, so many years and continents later). In many ways, it’s a good thing I left, before my antics caught the eyes of the omniscient IvyGate (co-edited by a friend of mine, may I add), or, God forbid, a mention in Sex and the Ivy. For the record, I also got sick of my (spelling-challenged) friends telling me “hon, you put the ‘whore’ in Wharton.” (I kid, I kid. Anyway, I think The Trump already earned that dubious honor.) Anyhow, my point is, how can you trust an institution whose mascot is….wait for it….a Quaker. Like the oatmeal. It’s hard to get fired up at a football game in support of the “Fighting Quakers”….I mean, Christ, weren’t they pacifists? Then again, revisionist history is big among the Ivy folks.


But I digress. Here’s the basics of the story. Frat party on campus. Lots of liquored up kids with popped collars and cheap cigars. A typical Friday night...until a gang of local middle schoolers show up to crash the party. Now, for those among you fortunate enough not to know where Penn is located, let me give you a hint. It ain’t Mr. Roger’s neighborhood.

Now, maybe it was a fine section of town...300 years ago. But – in a related WTH moment – I remember my first date upon arriving to college, oh-so-many years ago. Prince Ali (who will someday get his very own WTH post, just you wait!) squires me to the movies and then to a bar off campus. (Problem number one: a Muslim prince and heir apparent to...quite a lot of money and guns...drinking alcohol. “It’s okay,” he would tell me, “as long as it’s in a milkshake.” Apparently piña coladas = milkshake = reprieve from Allah’s eternal wrath. I still don’t get it.) Anyhow, as we leave the bar around midnight, we begin to walk home – to the soothing noise of gunfire. Yes. Across the street, I saw a man get shot. Welcome to Penn, folks. Welcome to the jungle.



So. Middle school kids show up at a frat party and stroll right on in, thinking it’s as good a locale as any to spray some graffiti. (Modern art, anyone?) They get belligerent, Penn kids get belligerent, an altercation ensues, they call in the reinforcements (Regulators...mount up!)...and some fine Ivy League scholar ends up getting knifed. Knifed by someone not old enough to go to a liquor store and buy some Boone’s Farm. Kids, I can’t make this shit up!

On a related, and equally hilarious, note….the very same weekend, a posse of pissed off kids assaulted some Penn scholars on the way home from the bar. “A large group of juveniles” was responsible for the fracas, says Penn’s Vice President of Public Safety. I am trying to imagine this now. I guess four-square and catch ‘em and kiss ‘em just aren’t as engaging as they used to be. Luckily for us, “no weapons were used by anyone involved.” Apparently the switchblades were already in use at the frat party, and Crayola crayons just don’t make for an effective instrument of intimidation – and neither does your membership card in the Wharton Venture Capital Association. Luckily (…), no (blue) blood was shed, and all parties went their merry way.

This, folks, is what $50K a year gets you...