It's a Thursday evening in February, almost 7:30. The long wooden study tables are packed, the reference librarian in hot demand. "You watch," whispers a 2L in the reading room of Harvard Law School's Langdell library. "A lot of people will be leaving this building soon."
Library flight isn't the only sign of a new campus-wide obsession. Students say moot-court professors begin Thursday-evening classes with promises to spring everyone early (the class is supposed to run until 8:30). And fliers for a party at the Harkness student center advertise Foosball with the dean, a live band and a keg-fueled eight o'clock group-watch of episode five. Yep, "Survivor-itis"-the national mania over CBS's blockbuster reality TV show-has hit the hallowed halls of Harvard Law.
On the one hand, the attraction is obvious: Survivor: The Australian Outback features second-year Harvard Law student Nick Brown, a handsome and likable 23-year-old Steilacoom, Washington, native who is also a U.S. Army officer. On the other hand, this is Harvard Law. It is a place studiously blasé about celebrities in its midst, so the relative gaganess over Nick Brown and Survivor is surprising-even dismaying to a few. "Many other students here are undertaking what I consider more substantive endeavors," laments one first-year, "but the Record [the student newspaper] did a front-page story on the show."
Actually, that's not all "America's First Law School Newspaper" is doing. To keep the campus duly informed, the Harvard Law Record now carries a regular back-page "Survivor Update" column. Right there between the usual dispatches about judicial reform in Haiti and recent Supreme Court deliberations is a blow-by-blow summary of each week's episode-including Nick's best and brightest exploits. "Nick stayed on the beach and loaded the water bearers," the February 16 edition cheers. "Now that's the Crimson spirit-Harvard Law students don't do water transport, man!"
Just being a friend of Nick's-a claim that's on the rise-causes a stir these days. "I've had several of my students come up to me and ask 'You know Nick?'" says 2L Brian Lutz, an alleged near confidant who teaches a class of first-years. "I've been bombarded by people asking me how far he went-but I have no idea. Really."
In fact, the did-he-or-didn't-he-win-the-million-bucks guessing game goes on with a zeal normally reserved for, well, studying. Practically every Brown sighting (or nonsighting) on campus is grist for speculation. "Nick was out of town last Thursday, so a lot of people figured he had lost and was going to do Letterman," says Lutz. "Of course, they were wrong."
According to a report posted on a Survivor fan site, a Harvard Law student recently tailed Brown to the library, where he sought to gauge how hard Brown was studying. If Brown was digging in, the student reasoned, he likely didn't win. (For the record, Brown was studying hard.) Others, meanwhile, have wondered if Nick's hair length upon return to campus (longer than usual) or his weight (thinner than normal) could be some sort of sign.
"I do notice that people who walk by Nick furtively take a glance at him," says Jahan Sagafi-nejad, a 3L who worked with Brown last year as a summer associate in San Francisco. "I saw him the other day across the street and I almost called out to him, but then it occurred to me I might cause a mob scene."
Some say campus Survivor interest will remain high no matter what happens to Brown (at press time, he was still alive, after six of the fourteen episodes). Others disagree. "If they vote him off, I'm not watching anymore,'" says 1L Adiah Ferron in a tense moment toward the end of the February 22 episode. Her friend agrees: If Nick is gone, it's back to Friends on Thursday.
But Nick isn't voted off-at least not this Thursday. Scenes from the next episode, however, show an unidentified member of Nick's tribe getting airlifted out after apparently getting munched by an alligator. Could the unthinkable have happened to Nick? At the Harkness student center, a dozen and a half students huddle around a bar in Oh-my-God silence. "He couldn't have gotten eaten," says one, hoping to comfort the others. "I saw him at the gym working out."
For a moment there's relief, but only for a moment. Something might have happened. Harvard will have to stay tuned for another week.
