Conn College alumni write to Sean Spicer

Inow know, because I am a casual reader of The College Voice newspaper at Connecticut College, that Trump press spokesman Sean Spicer, a Conn graduate, was known around campus by the nickname Sean Sphincter.

This became kind of a burning issue for College Voice staffers recently, after the Washington Post reported that the college newspaper once referred to Spicer, a losing candidate every single year for class president, as Sean Sphincter.

The Post also quoted an angry letter from student Spicer to his college paper, saying that he knew full well that it wasn’t just an ordinary typo.

Current students have done some agonizing over the insult to Spicer by the student publication all those years ago, with one student even penning an open letter apologizing.

But, more impressive of all, the paper’s editor-in-chief, Maia Hibbett, did some fine new reporting and tracked down Spicer’s freshman roommate.

You can hear the interview on The College Voice website, and, if you have a few minutes, it’s kind of fun.

She exonerates the staff members of The College Voice of old, kind of, when she elicits the explanation that the newspaper did not coin the Sphincter nickname. In fact that’s how he was known around campus, his roommate reported.

It turns out Spicer was, according to Dave Bry, his roommate all those years ago, someone with a high profile on campus who liked to drink beer and chew tobacco. He was a member of the sailing team and a prominent Republican.

Bry tells the story, in an essay he wrote for the Guardian, of the time when he first moved into the dorm room with Spicer and woke up the next morning with his roommate standing on the bed, handing out Busch beers to a room packed with other freshmen.

“Vote for Sean Spicer, class president ‘93,” he said, according to the Bry essay. “Just remember who gave you those beers.”

Spicer, Bry told Hibbett, was well known around campus, in part because of all his political campaigning. He was neither well liked nor hated, Bry said.

“He was very into, like, always having a sense of humor, and funny, and laughing and chatty,” Bry said. “And that was something that was kind of pleasant about him. But he wasn’t so good at it. And he wasn’t very popular ... He would walk into the room and everyone would kind of go: ‘Ugh, Spicer.’ But he was aware of that and so then would like, play with it, so he’d be like: ‘Hey, come on guys! It’s me! Come on guys, let’s have a beer; We love each other!’”

He was, Bry went on to say, complicated, someone who wanted to be liked and tried a little too hard.

These days it is not just Spicer’s time at the college in the ’90s that

capturing the attention of the campus community and more lines of print in The College Voice.

It turns out, we readers of the college newspaper also know, more than 1,200 college alumni have penned an open letter to Spicer reminding him of the Honor Code pledge he took those many years ago.

The letter specifically reminds Spicer that the matriculation pledge requires all college community members to “not only refrain from but actively combat the spread of rumors, lies and misinformation,” asking that he remember those values and spread them through the Trump administration.

The letter also suggests a “growing concern across the nation — and the world — that the Trump Administration does not respect the dignity of all people, regardless of race, immigration status, faith, ability, gender identity or sexual orientation.”

The pledge Spicer took, the letter says, included conducting “myself with integrity, civility and the utmost respect for the dignity of all human beings.”

I doubt Spicer is going to pay much attention to the letter from fellow alumni or take them up on their offer to meet, either in Washington or back on campus.

But I have to say I am pleased to know they wrote and sent it, in these times, with a Trump in the White House, when people increasingly seem to realize involvement and action are important and have consequences.