Oscar-Winning Screenwriter Kenneth Lonergan Blasts Wesleyan Journalist

In a blistering letter to the editor of Wesleyan University’s campus newspaper, Oscar-winner Kenneth Lonergan has accused a student journalist of “flat-out slander” for an opinion essay criticizing the director for casting Casey Affleck in “Manchester by the Sea.”

Last Thursday Connor Aberle wrote in the Wesleyan Argus that Lonergan and Wesleyan were complicit in promoting the career of Affleck, who was sued years ago for alleged sexual misconduct. The suits against Affleck were settled out of court.

Lonergan won an Oscar as screenwriter for “Manchester by the Sea,” which stars Affleck. In his essay, Aberle blasted both Lonergan, who attended Wesleyan but transferred to NYU, and Wesleyan, for praising the Oscar winner.

“Wesleyan University has an obligation to reject sexual violence of all kinds. Therefore, it cannot claim credit for Lonergan’s success without also recognizing his role in promoting Casey Affleck’s career,” Aberle’s article stated.

In his response, Lonergan called Aberle’s piece “such a tangle of illogic, misinformation and flat-out slander that only the author’s presumed youth can possibly excuse his deeply offensive display of ignorance, and warped PC-fueled sense of indignation.”

Lonergan attended Wesleyan in the early 1980s, before transferring to New York University. The Argus’ editors-in-chief, Jacob A. Lahut and Gili Lipman, said they verified that the letter came from Lonergan.

Phone calls and emails to Lonergan by The Courant were not returned Monday.

Aberle said he wrote his piece in response to an article in the school administration’s newsletter that praised all of the Wesleyan-affiliated Oscar nominees, including Lonergan. Aberle’s piece was headlined “How Wesleyan is Complicit in Affleck’s Sexual Misconduct by Endorsing Lonergan.” It alleges that Lonergan’s hiring of Affleck to play the role — for which he won a best-actor Oscar — and Wesleyan’s support for Lonergan were “problematic.”

Aberle, in an interview with The Courant, said Lonergan’s letter “was certainly powerfully worded. He made a couple of astute points that I highly respect. I still firmly stand by my article.”

Lahut told The Courant on Monday that he felt a bit of regret. “I do bear some responsibility for some of the hyperbolic language,” Lahut said.

“From an editorial standpoint, I have to toe the line. As opinion editors, we did the best we could,” he said. “No college opinion piece is going to be perfect.”

Both Aberle and Lahut said the column’s harsh tone was affected by prevalent attitudes of distrust by students toward the reporting of allegations of sexual misconduct. Lahut said that attitude “if not consciously, subconsciously” affected his editing of the piece. “In the mind of a lot of students here, if you are accused of sexual misconduct, you are a de facto perpetrator,” Lahut told The Courant. “There is such little trust in the reporting process and the legal procedures on campus.”

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