' town vs. gown '

From Dead as a Doornail:

'Just as I was turning with my tray resting on my right hand, trouble erupted. A Louisiana Tech student from Ruston got into a one-on-one class war with Jeff LaBeff, a redneck who had many children and made a kind of living driving a garbage truck. Maybe it was just a case of two stubborn guys colliding and really didn't have much to do with town vs. gown (not that we were that close to Ruston).'


Town and Gown from Wikipedia

Town and gown are two distinct communities of a university town; "town" being the non-academic population and "gown" metonymically being the university community, especially in ancient seats of learning such as Oxford, Cambridge and St Andrews, though also in more modern university towns such as Durham. The metaphor is historical in its connotation but continues to be used in the literature on urban higher education and in common parlance.

Origin of the term

The gown and hood worn for BA graduation at Cambridge During the Middle Ages, students admitted to the European universities often held minor clerical status and donned garb similar to that worn by the clergy. These vestments evolved into the academic long black gown, worn along with hood and cap. The gown proved comfortable for studying in unheated and drafty buildings and thus became a tradition in the universities. The gown also served as a social symbol, as it was impractical for physical manual work (a comparison can be made with the gowns worn by Chinese officials). The hood was often adorned with the colours of the colleges and designated the young scholar's university affiliation. Thus by their distinctive clothing, the students were set apart and distinguished from the citizens of the town; hence the phrase "town and gown."

Read on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Town_and_gown