The Beatdown in Brunswick: Malcolm Gladwell vs. Bowdoin College

Not Sideshow Bob.

Famous writer--and occasional Sideshow Bob doppelganger--Malcolm Gladwell has infuriated the powerful masses at Bowdoin College by claiming the elite liberal arts school's penchant for high end cuisine for its students comes at the cost of admitting fewer low-income students.

Earlier this year, the Princeton Review named the Brunswick, Maine, school as having the best cuisine of any college or university in America. Yet, at the same time, Bowdoin's acceptance rate heavily skews toward wealthier students. This, Gladwell argues on his podcast Revisionist History, is partly due to the fact that Bowdoin chooses to invest money in fine dining and not aid that could go toward poorer applicants.

As Business Insider points out, Bowdoin did not take kindly to such an assertion, and released a lengthy statement that starts off as such:


"Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast “Revisionist History” (aptly named) takes a manipulative and disingenuous shot at Bowdoin College that is filled with false assumptions, anecdotal evidence, and incorrect conclusions."

Bowdoin's thin-skinned alarmist claim is based off their being one of the very few colleges or universities in the United States that provides need-blind assistance, and includes aid packages that never involve loans, only grants.

Likewise, Bowdoin claims that Gladwell's podcast producer emailed the school to ask about the food, never admissions or aid, so that he "focused only on Bowdoin’s food in a manner that was disingenuous, dishonest, and manipulative."

This is the kind of two-snaps-and-a-twist First World drama you usually see on Bravo or E!, except more nebbish and scholarly--with a complete lack of Christian Louboutin heels.

Gladwell wasn't pleased with the reaction he was receiving from Bowdoin or the school's alumni online--so he fired back on Twitter:

In retrospect this week's episode of https://t.co/2Mqc5Dwr4V should have included a trigger warning for Bowdoin grads.

— Malcolm Gladwell (@Gladwell) July 14, 2016

Trigger warning zingers! Looks like Gladwell decided to dig into the amateur mic night material he saves for The Chuckle Hut.

In the end, the high society verbal slapfest continues between the two sides, with no winner declared in this squabble. No winner, that is, except us.