Columbia Students Strip Down

Columbia University is having an underground party that requires all attendees to go naked. But some students are voicing opposition to it, not because of its distasteful nature, but simply put, Columbia students are mostly ugly.

"Columbia students are generally not into the exhibitionist realm," said Zachary Bendiner, a senior who edits a campus periodical, the Blue and White. "Rightfully so, because by and large they aren't terribly attractive."

This would be funny enough, if not for a later quote from a past attendee, Richard Lipkin. He said that about 80 to 100 naked people - including a fair number of law and business school students - were concentrated in one apartment. Clothes were dumped near the entrance. Women slightly outnumbered men, and people were generally - if not exclusively - good looking, the type who are often more willing to flout culture's restrictions on nudity.

What is so great about this is that the writer must have gone with Bendiner's assessment that Columbia students are for the most part "terribly unattractive." So he had to have asked Lipkin about it, sparking Lipkin's comment about the looks of those he remembers in attendance.

Of course, perhaps you can judge from these comments that the graduate students at Columbia are just better looking than the undergrads, which could be so. However, it's been my experience that the graduate students there are no supermodels themselves. Lipkin probably just wanted to be invited back.

Dan