Earlier this week, the Baltimore Sun ran an op-ed about college dating experiences.

I wrote this response.

Dear Editors:

“I was about to meet Amherst College preppies,” Carolyn Buck writes of her first party there. (“Undermining our new empowerment,” September 25)

I was an Amherst student. I graduated in June 1972. Ms. Buck entered Mt. Holyoke that fall.

I was not a preppie. I went to City College.

My only misgiving about Amherst was that it was all-male. Women could spend an academic year on campus, but they were never full fledged members of the community.

There is more than a kernel of truth in the “Animal House” depiction of the relationships between men and women. The movie’s Emily Dickinson College, Ms. Buck notes, was a parody of Mt. Holyoke.

There’s an Amherst reference in the movie as well. One of the floats in the parade bears a slogan, “If better women are made, Ferber men will make them.” At freshmen orientation, we learned about that slogan.

A dean told Holyoke students, “Remember, ladies the ‘h’ is silent. Pronounce it ‘Am-erst.'”

What happened on Amherst and other campuses should no longer remain silent.

To borrow the Johns Hopkins motto, “The truth shall set you free.”

The op-ed is at http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-op-0925-basic-civility-20180924-story.html