Horace Mann's Little Roy Cohn Writes Letters
Little right-wing creep kid Charles Stam sent a two thousand word letter to the editor of the Horace Mann Record, his high-school paper.
We all remember Stam, right? New York Magazine introduced us to the kid last year, when he was a senior at the prestigious and completely insufferable prep school. The story was about how all the little shits at that miserable school basically ran the asylum, along with their terrible parents.
The worst of the worst was Stam, an ambitious little jerk who waged his own culture wars against teachers who dared try to make him care about minorities. His self-admitted personal hero: Roy Cohn.
But then he got into Columbia, and one might then assume that he'd be done terrorizing the staff of his high school. Because, seriously kid, get over it. It was high school.
But no! With student body elections coming up, Stam decided to write the aforementioned 2,000 word letter to his high school newspaper, because he's apparently the biggest loser in the world. And when the paper didn't print his letter, he didn't, say, buy some 40s and get drunk and forget about it and maybe have some casual unprotected sex with someone, like a normal college student. No, instead he emailed everyone at Horace Mann, from his Columbia email address in case this was not sad enough already, to complain of censorship. Because when your high school student paper doesn't print a lengthy, rambling, ranty letter sent by a former student, that is what first amendment attorneys call "the censorship."
We'll reprint here like one-quarter of the entire email, just so you get an idea of how amazingly self-involved and hilarious it is:
Preface: This letter was submitted to The Record's editorial board last week. After hearing no reply from them for 30 hours, I phoned the stupub and was informed that they would not be running my letter. At no time did a member of the board inform me of their decision and they refused to discuss their rationale for censoring me. The fact that they did not tell me the grounds for denying the letter can only lead me to think that there was no actual debate over the letter; I can only conclude that there was no vote and that the editorial board never had a say in the matter. Usually when students object to the content of a submitted letter they contact the author with their specific quibbles or provide a reason for the exclusion of the letter. I thus believe that the faculty advisor simply refused to print the letter on principle and the reason I didn't hear a justification was because there was no actual debate on the substance of my submission. Of course the editor denied this, but that is only a measure intended save face and to preserve the illusion that they are real journalists and have say over their content. In addition to being lied to, I was even told that it in the newspaper industry less than 1% of submitted letters are printed; I did not know The Record received such a high volume of letters so at least I feel better about getting shafted. Or perhaps the board did vote (I still doubt this) and they voted in favor of suppressing the truth. If this is the case, the students of the school ought to take the paper to task, as excluding information because it is politically inconvenient to one's agenda is quite subversive and far more disgraceful than being censored by your advisor. It is now clear that the students do not have a forum where they can share openly ideas without censorship and I believe The Record no longer serves its purpose as a student newspaper.
To The Horace Mann Community,
After reading last week's editorial I am compelled to respond and not only defend our current student leaders but also to implore the student body to make an educated decision in the upcoming SBP election. The Record's attack on Rafi and Malik in last week's issue was malicious, polemical, and vindictive. This paper has had it in for our SBP/VP from the second they were elected, as was the case during my presidency when the paper willfully deceived me on multiple occasions in an attempt to sabotage a referendum that was in the best interest of the school. That is because The Record board, not our student leaders, is out of touch with the rest of their classmates; they are elitists, have an inflated view of the importance of their own work, and have contempt for the average student. The members of this paper's editorial board are as ill suited to write about their constituents as Ronald Reagan would be if he were appointed to the staff of Pravda. I am left with no other choice but to conclude that The Record believes the students are unenlightened, having not been vetted/canonized by elders of yore (ie past board members of this august institution), should not be afforded basic rights, and should instead submissively bend down and surrender to the will of an increasingly wild, out of control, and destructive administration which seems bent on taking any positive, student empowering institution at this school and tearing it to shreds.
It goes on like that for like five more lengthy paragraphs. This poor kid. We'd almost feel bad for him if he wasn't everything that's wrong with kids today.