A Real-Life University Is Furious With The White Lotus

This article contains a discussion of suicide.

Throughout season 3 of "The White Lotus," the Thailand-based installment of Mike White's anthology series, Timothy Ratliff (Jason Isaacs) has been going through it. Upon conversing with his former business partner Kenny (Ke Huy Quan) in the season's first two episodes, the North Carolina-based businessman finds out that the myriad of professional crimes he's committed — which include money laundering and bribery — have come to light and that, back home, the FBI is gleefully raiding his office and seizing his assets. So, what does any of this have to do with Duke University, and why is the school so mad about "The White Lotus" right now?

In an article in The New York Times, the school's vice president for communications, Frank Tramble, told the outlet via email that the school didn't authorize any of the references regarding it on "The White Lotus," and its head honchos definitely aren't thrilled that Timothy keeps wearing a shirt with the school's logo as he fantasizes about taking his own life with a gun he pilfered from the hotel's security team. "Duke appreciates artistic expression and creative storytelling," Tramble remarked, "but characters' prominently wearing apparel bearing Duke's federally registered trademarks creates confusion and mistakenly suggests an endorsement or affiliation where none exists." He also said that White's series "not only uses our brand without permission, but in our view uses it on imagery that is troubling, does not reflect our values or who we are, and simply goes too far."

Another statement from Tramble, obtained by Bloomberg, addressed how the imagery is being used. "'The White Lotus' not only uses our brand without permission, but in our view uses it on imagery that is troubling, does not reflect our values or who we are, and simply goes too far," it reads. "Suicide is the second-leading cause of death on college campuses. As imagery from the show is being shared widely across social media, we are using our brand to promote mental health awareness and remind people that help is available."

The Ratliffs on "The White Lotus" are a family divided — not just by the fact that they're all keeping increasingly bizarre secrets, but frankly, even by the universities they so proudly attended. Thanks to Timothy's wife Victoria (Parker Posey), who (inadvisably) pops pills like candy, we know right off the bat that both Timothy and the family's eldest son Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger) both attended Duke, but Victoria and the Ratliffs' only daughter Piper (Sarah Catherine Hook) went to University of North Carolina (likely the Chapel Hill campus). We also learn that the baby of the family, Lochlan (Sam Nivola), is in the process of deciding between these exact two schools. (For context for non-American readers: Duke is in Durham, where the Ratliffs are canonically from, and UNC Chapel Hill is, well, in Chapel Hill.)

There's a huge faction of people — particularly in American culture — who really tie their identity to the colleges or universities they attended, from supporting their athletic teams for years after graduating to the kind of person that says they went to "school in Cambridge" just so you then ask if they did, in fact, go to Harvard. Frankly, I think it's brilliant on Mike White's part to make the already status-obsessed, narrow-minded Ratliffs obsessed with where they went to school, as if that proves positive something about their character. (This should go without saying, but where you went to school has nothing to do with your character.) Add this to the fact that Victoria spends a lot of the season prattling on about people being "decent" without realizing her husband is a literal criminal, and it paints a pitch-perfect picture of a family that's obsessed with shallow labels but never takes the time to look inward. Based on everything the Ratliffs have experienced and done during season 3 of "The White Lotus," I'd say that describes them pretty well.

Obviously, Duke University isn't mad because "The White Lotus" is using its iconography. Duke University is mad because the show keeps putting Timothy Ratliff in a shirt with Duke's logo prominently displayed while he contemplates taking his own life with a gun, a thing he does pretty frequently on his vacation in Thailand. Timothy is losing his grip on reality in general; after he gets news from his associates at home that he's fully under investigation and will probably end up incarcerated the second he returns to the United States, he starts quietly stealing Victoria's pills, which happen to be a medication called lorazepam, and taking them all the time (and mixing them with copious amounts of alcohol, which is not advisable). From there, he just gets weird, whether he's flashing his own kids by accident or tweaking out on pills and booze while aboard a stranger's yacht. So, again, I do sort of understand why Duke isn't thrilled that it keeps getting dragged into this fictional character's full breakdown.

In any case, the university hasn't taken any legal action as of this writing and the season's already filmed, so Mike White and HBO can't exactly force the horse back into the barn here and give Timothy's Duke shirt a break for now. "The White Lotus" airs new episodes on Sunday at 9 P.M. EST on Max and HBO.

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