April 14, 2011
An Open Letter To the Academic Standards Committee:
I am informed that Michael Wilner CMC ’11 has written to you accusing me of a whole host of offenses, none of which are true. I write now to correct that false record and to offer evidence which I hope will dissuade you from granting Mr. Wilner’s request to keep his thesis offline. As this letter will demonstrate, I believe this willingness to censor his own thesis and yet use others theses against them exhibits a pattern of hypocrisy and chutzpah that is unprecedented in Claremont McKenna history.
It is worth bearing in mind why Mr. Wilner would like to have his thesis taken down from public viewing; He has been found guilty by Claremont McKenna’s J-Board of violating the school’s code of conduct and may face criminal assault charges. He, understandably, does not want his record to be known to a wider audience.
On February 27th, 2011, Michael Wilner, according to a police report, repeatedly struck a female CMC student repeatedly in the face. [Document 1] More than a month later, on April 1st, he was found guilty by the J-Board and sentenced to 20 hours of community service. [Document 2] Criminal charges are still pending against him. Michael, who had been drinking during the altercation according to witness statements, has a history of drunken misbehavior dating back to at least 2008. [Document 3].
Alas, rather than accept his punishment and move on with his life – he has never once apologized for striking the victim because he, according to the investigating R.A., didn’t want to be seen as making potentially incriminating statements. Meanwhile, Michael has chosen to spread a series of falsehoods about me.
He writes to you,
Charles Johnson has written and entertain others posting attacks on my integrity, my sense of character, and my moral judgment; the company I keep, the professors who teach me, my sexuality and the people I am intimate with. At its worst, the Dean of Students Office has had to monitor his blog for my safety, since no boundaries have been respected regarding the viciousness of the character assassination he has waged.
It would seem that a physical attack on a female student in which she required medical attention speaks for itself. If that does not, the photos do. I have not “entertained others” to post anything attacking him.
He is referring to the open comment policy I have on my website in which I allow anyone to comment anonymously, even those who criticize me. Some of those comments have mentioned Wilner’s alleged sexuality. When possible and alerted to them, I have deleted them. I should note, by the way, that Mr. Wilner, in violation of the CMC Forum’s policy on comments has unilaterally deleted any mention of his attack on that female student without consulting any other Forum writer. [Document 4]
This censorship of the school website has never extended such a courtesy to any staff writer or to anyone else. He merely deleted material that criticized him from a school-funded website. It seems that that fits a pattern: anonymity and protection for Michael, but not for others – and that seems to be at work here in his most recent petition for special treatment.
Michael, after all, made public the victim’s boyfriend’s thesis at the J-Board hearing to impugn both of their characters and yet doesn’t want his own thesis on heroism made public? This is again, a rather ironic and hypocritical stance. If you are going to grant Wilner’s request to have his thesis not be made public, why not grant all requests that theses not be made public?
He has accused me of saying that I hope he is “unemployable.” This is false. Here I suspect Mr. Wilner is referring to a conversation I had with the victim in which I promised her, late one morning after I saw photographic evidence that showed the physical damage that Michael had done to her face, that I would write on the story. When she asked me what I thought would be the end result, I said, “I suspect it’ll make him unemployable.” [I should note that Michael is relaying this conversation back from one of his admitted friends, who overheard a portion of the victim’s and my conversation, but not its entirety.]
Of course, his argument is entirely for naught. I have no interest in whatever Michael has written in his thesis on “heroism,” nor do I have any interest whatsoever in publicizing this matter further. Though I don’t have to, I hereby promise not to write a word about it on my website. As my writing is his stated reason for being exempt. Based on this concession by me, there is no longer any reasonable basis upon which to grant Mr. Wilner’s peculiar request.
26 comments:
"Cyber harassment," and attacking his "sexuality"? Wow, Michael is full of so much bullshit it's unbelievable. And of course DOS indulges him! Keep up the good work, CJ, and fine response to his childish letter.
I hope you continue writing about this, despite your stated intentions. I am an active alumni volunteer and I am appalled at the response from the CMC administration and even a member of our very own Board of Directors for their lack of action on this. I have invested too much time and money into CMC to see our reputation tarnished by the behavior of Michael Wilner. I cringe to think about the consequences of giving him a CMC degree and sending him out into the world as a representative of this school, given the likelihood of repeat behavior from him.
There have always been "Michael Wilners" at CMC. He is not the first, nor the last to display violence against women.
Too bad we won't have you to report on future Michael Wilners.
Great letter, CJ.
CJ, who was the friend who reported on your conversation in the computer lab?
It was Nikki Holzberg, another PPEer. She told me and the victim that she was a friend of Michael's and that she would appreciate it if we did not talk about him or write about it. I confronted her and said that she must not think that abuse against women is a big deal; the victim rightly pointed out that she didn't ask to be hit in the face. Nikki continued and said that we still shouldn't write or talk about it. I told her we would agree to disagree. Nikki heard only a very small portion of the conversation as we were whispering.
While abuse against women is obviously a big deal, you'll note that Wilner has not been convicted of doing it by anyone accept Charles, who has doggedly refused to mention what charges Wilner was actually found guilty of in his J-Board hearing in any of his posts on the subject. (In case you were curious, it was section 1-B of the CMC handbook on student conduct which specifies only disorderly conduct. Wilner was acquitted of 1-F, which corresponds to assault/battery) I hope that Charles plans on remedying this flagrant neglect of journalistic ethics in the future.
"Wilner was acquitted of 1-F, which corresponds to assault/battery)" So friggin' what? Does that mean he didnt do it, or does it mean that his expensive "loop hole" lawyer effectively scared the school into lessening the charges? Let us not forget that OJ couldnt have killed the white lady since a jury said so...
the victim found out today that the district attorney has picked up her case. apparently the evidence was good enough for them...
Of course they picked it up, he is a criminal and assaulted a female.
ooooh boy!! If Wilner faces criminal charges we'd have to get rid of J-boarding because it just shows how badly the system failed... It's gonna reflect so badly on Gann!
How the hell did you get ahold of this?
A source gave it to me the other night. It's authentic. I confirmed the signature against another signature from a document I had from Wilner.
I bet Charles slipped Elizabeth Morgan a Benjamin
Salzman?
Do you refer to Sascha as "the victim" to her face now, too? Or is this is just simply a sensationalizing technique?
I mean, you've referred to her as Sascha in recent posts, only now she's been renamed as "victim."
You say tomato, charles says victim...
This may be just a shot in the dark, but would it be safe for me to assume that Charles has a history with the PPE program? Perhaps he applied and got rejected?
It's hard to find another reason why he is SO bitter towards the program and its members. I understand that it is a major where its members become much closer than people in other majors. But seriously Charles, do you have to bring up the major every time you attack one of Wilner's friends?
It's a shot in the dark.
I don't think it was Nikki's friendship of Wilner through PPE that made her ask you to stop the personal attacks against him. It was common decency. She pointed out to you what the rest of the world realized days ago, which is that this story is beyond old and is making you look like a douchebag for continuing the blatant ad hominem attacks. Shame on you for dragging another good person into this debacle.
Don't even think about a canned bullshit response like, "well, he hit a girl," or "I'm bringing the school the justice that Gann and the rest of the administration were too weak to provide." I figured out that he hit a girl about 16 articles ago. Everyone who could ever care that he hit a girl already knows. And I know, as does everyone, that you don't like Gann, the administration, or anyone in our community that doesn't think that you're the hero you view yourself as. You're continuing to write because it drives hits to your blog and because it makes you good to watch one of your enemies fall.
I'm not friends with Wilner. I think he a dick and I'm still thoroughly convinced that you've crossed the line. In fact, I'm writing this because I'm one of your friends and I want to help you by letting you know that your obsession has gotten to the point where it's only hurting your reputation. Wilner has been more than punished for his thoughtless actions. Your destruction of his reputation has made up for whatever action the J-board chose not to take.
As always, I have no doubt that you'll be able to defend yourself with some silly response about protecting Sasha or bringing down a guy who punched a girl six weeks ago. I look forward to seeing what sort of bullshit you can produce.
@Last anonymous,
I'm sorry, but I don't believe that you are a friend of mine. My friends aren't anonymous cowards. They talk to me and tell me when I'm wrong.
I think you are also wrong that the whole school thinks X; I've been approached by people who told me that they used to hate me, but now fully support me. Either way, whatever they have to say doesn't really interest me. You might call it a canned response, but I really am interested in justice.
"But I really am interested in justice."
You've been saying this for a a while now. Everyone knows it's bullshit simply by your divisive antics. Please don't play the justice card as you're just embarrassing yourself. It has nothing to do with justice, and EVERYTHING to do with getting a sick pleasure out of watching people suffer from the various poisonous attacks you've launched throughout the years. Graduation cannot come soon enough.
It's true. You seem not to realize that I don't care if you believe me or not.
"It's true. You seem not to realize that I don't care if you believe me or not."
It's actually very clear; Your behavior is emblematic of a sociopath. It's less about your not caring if people believe you, and more about your complete disregard and dismissal of anybody other than yourself. I hope you get help, and I don't mean that as a slam.
On the contrary, he has quite a bit of empathy. Wilner on the other hand... not so much.
I looked up schadenfreude and saw a link to these articles about Wilner. This hasn't been about justice for a while and it's obvious to 90% of us watching this echo chamber that Charles calls his comments section.
Well, keep it up Charles. Without you, the CMC system would sweep this under the rock. Spellman and Gann are cowards. I will not donate one cent as an alum until they grow some balls.
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