‘He Likes the Attention’: Stephen Miller, Through the Memories of His Duke Classmates

This story was originally published in the Duke University student publication The Duke Chronicle. Seyun Park is the winner of the Rolling Stone College Journalism Award in the Feature Writing Category.

“Hi, I’m Stephen Miller . I’m from Santa Monica, California, and I like guns.”

According to those who met him during freshman orientation, that is how Stephen Miller, Trinity ‘07, made his first introduction at Duke. Miller quickly earned the nickname “Guns,” and his penchant for attracting attention would continue over his Duke career and beyond.

Miller, currently President Donald Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, first made headlines in his rise to power as a speechwriter for the president in 2017. In the following decade, Miller’s power and position have only grown, and he now advises Trump on matters ranging from immigration and homeland security to foreign policy and education.

But before Miller, 40, became one of the nation’s most powerful men, he was an 18-year-old student, living in East Campus’ Pegram dorm, writing columns for The Chronicle and leading conservative activism on campus.

Miller’s four years at Duke became a launching point for his political career.

Twenty years later, those who knew Miller remember him as an eccentric and provocative character on campus — ultimately a reflection of the person he would one day become.

Alongside his sword, Amy Terwilleger, Trinity ‘07, who lived in Pegram during Miller’s first year, recalled him walking around in a “weird, brown bathrobe” and drinking scotch. As a first-year, Miller “looked and acted like an old man,” she recalled.

A common memory of his dormmates is that Miller, who looked old for his age, would buy alcohol for others at their behest. Miller “launched into angry rants” if cashiers tried to card him, according to journalist Jean Guerrero, author of Hatemonger , a 2020 biography about Miller. Editor’s picks The 250 Greatest Albums of the 21st Century So Far The 100 Best TV Episodes of All Time The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century

Reporting by Vanity Fair ’s Evgenia Peretz confirmed his first-year habits. Peretz added that Miller liked to smoke Nat Sherman cigarettes — something he would later defend in a Chronicle column — leading Peretz to characterize his “slinking around” as that of a “Libertarian Lounge Lizard.”

“In some ways, he was just a normal 18-year-old kid,” Terwilleger said. “He just did these things and said these things that were just so odd, so off the wall that you didn’t take it seriously … like typical kids trying to get attention — they say kind of outrageous things.”

One of Miller’s first-year professors, Hein Goemans, recalled on a podcast earlier this year that Miller told him he wanted to work in the White House one day. Goemans claimed he followed up, asking Miller in his POLSCI 122 class who he would work for, to which Miller replied: “Donald Trump, maybe.” The Chronicle could not independently verify Goemans’ claims, and Goemans declined The Chronicle ’s request for comment.

But the most common recollection of Miller’s first-year was his romantic life.