Regent Ron Weiser (R) is using a new U-M email with the uniqname “dannyboi” after discontinuing his public University email amid controversy earlier this academic year. Since at least late March, emails to rnweiser@umich.edu, previously listed as Weiser’s email contact on his Board of Regents website page, have bounced back.
Weiser’s youngest son is named Danny; however, whether that is the origin of his new uniqname is unclear. A source close to the board has confirmed that dannyboi@umich.edu is Weiser’s new email address
The Michigan Daily also uncovered an email, riddled with cryptic messages reminiscent of those one would send to an estranged romantic partner, sent by Weiser to the entire Board of Regents on Friday, Oct. 18, 2019 at 11:21 P.M.. It has the subject line “CG.”
Weiser asks the intended recipient what the point of their call was and why they decided to block him.
“I called you several times. You didn’t answer. You didn’t answer cuz you were with her. I get it. I get it. I get it. I get it. I get it. I get it. I totally get it” Weiser wrote. “I can’t handle it. I’m worth more. I’m tired of apologizing. I’m tired of feeling this way.”
Weiser continues, frustrated by the seemingly sudden lack of response from the recipient.
“I’m not the one you are mad at. You were already mad. I was jealous. Rightfully so. Now I calm down and you won’t answer my call,” Weiser wrote. “Are you with her? Is that why? Are you working it out with her? I’m blind over here, remember? You blocked me? This is crazy.”
Weiser’s message is the newest addition to a set of email controversies he has faced in the past. In February, The Daily revealed emails Weiser sent to fellow Board of Regents members calling bargaining graduate students “hired union hacks.” He also compared other Regents’ lack of support during calls for his resignation to “Germany in the 1930s.” That same group of emails contained one sent by Weiser that only contained a photo of a bikini-clad woman with the subject line “BB.”
Weiser was censured by the Board of Regents in April for misogynistic and violent statements he made at the North Oakland Republican Club in March. Weiser referred to Michigan’s top Democratic leaders, presumably Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and Attorney General Dana Nessel, as “three witches.” He also joked about the potential assassination of two U.S. House Republicans from Michigan who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump in January. Four of his Democratic colleagues on the board called on him to resign.
Following his comments at the Republican Club and the Regents meeting, Weiser faced significant backlash from other members of the U-M community. A group called the Network for the Ongoing Reconsideration of Our Nomenclature at the University of Michigan (NoRon) protested at Weiser Hall by “renaming” it the “Weiser Center for Voter Suppression, Political Assassination and Witch Burning.”
Despite pressure from NoRon and other members of the campus community to officially rename Weiser Hall after someone else, in June, the University announced the building would retain its name.
Weiser’s remarks in March were part of a larger ongoing controversy regarding the regent, who is one of two Republicans on the eight-member Board of Regents. In January, Weiser did not specifically condemn Donald Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 insurrection in the U.S. Capitol, which led to calls for his resignation from thousands of students and faculty.
Weiser was reelected Chair of the Michigan Republican Party for his third non-consecutive term with 66% of the vote at the 2021 Michigan GOP Convention.
At the time of publication, neither Weiser nor a spokesperson for the University has responded to The Daily’s request for comment regarding his new email address or the 2019 email.
Summer News Editor Jared Dougall can be reached at jdougall@umich.edu.
Daily Staff Reporter Sammy Sussman and Summer Editor-in-Chief Calder Lewis contributed reporting.