the drama that led up to yesterday....or at least my explanation
After weeks of violent protest across the Muslim world over a set of cartoons satirizing the Prophet Muhammad printed in European newspapers, the tension over the images has reached the United States.
The decision by a pair of editors to
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reprint the cartoons in The Daily Illini at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on February 9 has caused an uproar on the campus - and on Wednesday, it cost the students their jobs.
The New York Times reports that Muslim students and supporters held protests on the campus quadrangle on Tuesday saying they were stunned by the paper's publication of the images. From Pakistan to Malaysia, the two-week protests over the comics have resulted in more than a dozen deaths, the torching of European embassies and the burning of effigies of President Bush (see "Muslim Fury Over Danish Cartoons Spurs Riots Across The Globe - Why?").
The Daily Illini staff was so angry that in Wednesday's paper the publisher announced that editor in chief Acton H. Gorton, 25, and the opinions-page editor Chuck Prochaska, 20, had been suspended pending an investigation into how the cartoons made it into the paper.
Most major American newspapers, including The New York Times, have not printed the cartoons, first published in a Danish newspaper last September.
"This has gotten crazy," said Gorton, who decided to run six of the 12 cartoons even though he said he found them "bigoted and insensitive," according to the Times. Gorton said he received calls for his resignation, but quite a bit of praise as well, including comments of support from students as he walked on campus. "We did this to raise a healthy dialogue about an important issue that is in the news and so that people would learn more about Islam. Now, I'm basically fired."
The Illini printed the cartoons on the opinions page next to a column by Gorton explaining why he decided to publish them. Angry calls began coming in the morning the cartoons ran in the Illini. Shaz Kaiseruddin, a third-year law student and president of the Muslim Student Association, told the Times she awoke to a phone call from an angry colleague. "I was in disbelief that they would do this," Kaiseruddin, 24, said, "that our own student-based newspaper would be so ignorant and disrespectful."
The publication of the images has drawn so much ire because any depiction of Muhammad is considered blasphemous and is strictly avoided by Muslims.
The chancellor of the university sent a letter criticizing the paper, which is an independent publication. Richard Herman's letter said, "I believe that the D.I. could have engaged its readers in legitimate debate about the issues surrounding the cartoons' publication in Denmark without publishing them. It is possible, for instance, to editorialize about pornography without publishing pornographic pictures."
Staffers were reportedly furious that Gorton and Prochaska printed the images without properly discussing it with the paper's other top editors. The pair said they followed proper protocol and that anyone working at the paper could have seen the pages before they ran. The Illini ran an apology in light of the uproar and has promised more complete, nuanced coverage of the issue.
But the situation got even more heated on Thursday when the paper ran an opinion piece and a letter to the newspaper alumni blaming the two suspended editors for the publication of the cartoons. According to the Chicago Tribune, the opinion piece repeatedly named the two editors and said they "began planning for these cartoons, without the knowledge of the editorial board and executive team, at least two nights before their publication," going on to say that they didn't act responsibly and "weren't sensitive and tactful" with co-workers. Paper alumni also received an e-mail Thursday from publisher Mary Cory making similar charges.
Gorton's attorney sent a letter calling the paper's comments and Cory's e-mail defamatory and threatened legal action.
Some of the cartoons have been published in papers at the University of Wisconsin, Harvard University, Northern Illinois University and Illinois State University. While a handful of college papers, such as those at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Arizona State University and the University of Arizona, have published their own cartoons that comment on or refer to the controversial cartoons.
The decision to print or not print has set off debates on campuses across the country pitting two of the most dearly held values at universities: freedom of speech and sensitivity to other cultures.
After the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Badger Herald ran the most controversial image on Monday - depicting Muhammad with a turban in the shape of a bomb - officials organized a forum to discuss the issue next week. "Universally, we found the cartoon to be repugnant," Mac VerStandig, the editor in chief of Herald, told the Times. "But we believe that there was a certain endangerment of free speech here, especially given the general prudishness of the American press. We believe our readers are mature enough to look at these images."
- Gil Kaufman
The decision by a pair of editors to
[0]
reprint the cartoons in The Daily Illini at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on February 9 has caused an uproar on the campus - and on Wednesday, it cost the students their jobs.
The New York Times reports that Muslim students and supporters held protests on the campus quadrangle on Tuesday saying they were stunned by the paper's publication of the images. From Pakistan to Malaysia, the two-week protests over the comics have resulted in more than a dozen deaths, the torching of European embassies and the burning of effigies of President Bush (see "Muslim Fury Over Danish Cartoons Spurs Riots Across The Globe - Why?").
The Daily Illini staff was so angry that in Wednesday's paper the publisher announced that editor in chief Acton H. Gorton, 25, and the opinions-page editor Chuck Prochaska, 20, had been suspended pending an investigation into how the cartoons made it into the paper.
Most major American newspapers, including The New York Times, have not printed the cartoons, first published in a Danish newspaper last September.
"This has gotten crazy," said Gorton, who decided to run six of the 12 cartoons even though he said he found them "bigoted and insensitive," according to the Times. Gorton said he received calls for his resignation, but quite a bit of praise as well, including comments of support from students as he walked on campus. "We did this to raise a healthy dialogue about an important issue that is in the news and so that people would learn more about Islam. Now, I'm basically fired."
The Illini printed the cartoons on the opinions page next to a column by Gorton explaining why he decided to publish them. Angry calls began coming in the morning the cartoons ran in the Illini. Shaz Kaiseruddin, a third-year law student and president of the Muslim Student Association, told the Times she awoke to a phone call from an angry colleague. "I was in disbelief that they would do this," Kaiseruddin, 24, said, "that our own student-based newspaper would be so ignorant and disrespectful."
The publication of the images has drawn so much ire because any depiction of Muhammad is considered blasphemous and is strictly avoided by Muslims.
The chancellor of the university sent a letter criticizing the paper, which is an independent publication. Richard Herman's letter said, "I believe that the D.I. could have engaged its readers in legitimate debate about the issues surrounding the cartoons' publication in Denmark without publishing them. It is possible, for instance, to editorialize about pornography without publishing pornographic pictures."
Staffers were reportedly furious that Gorton and Prochaska printed the images without properly discussing it with the paper's other top editors. The pair said they followed proper protocol and that anyone working at the paper could have seen the pages before they ran. The Illini ran an apology in light of the uproar and has promised more complete, nuanced coverage of the issue.
But the situation got even more heated on Thursday when the paper ran an opinion piece and a letter to the newspaper alumni blaming the two suspended editors for the publication of the cartoons. According to the Chicago Tribune, the opinion piece repeatedly named the two editors and said they "began planning for these cartoons, without the knowledge of the editorial board and executive team, at least two nights before their publication," going on to say that they didn't act responsibly and "weren't sensitive and tactful" with co-workers. Paper alumni also received an e-mail Thursday from publisher Mary Cory making similar charges.
Gorton's attorney sent a letter calling the paper's comments and Cory's e-mail defamatory and threatened legal action.
Some of the cartoons have been published in papers at the University of Wisconsin, Harvard University, Northern Illinois University and Illinois State University. While a handful of college papers, such as those at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Arizona State University and the University of Arizona, have published their own cartoons that comment on or refer to the controversial cartoons.
The decision to print or not print has set off debates on campuses across the country pitting two of the most dearly held values at universities: freedom of speech and sensitivity to other cultures.
After the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Badger Herald ran the most controversial image on Monday - depicting Muhammad with a turban in the shape of a bomb - officials organized a forum to discuss the issue next week. "Universally, we found the cartoon to be repugnant," Mac VerStandig, the editor in chief of Herald, told the Times. "But we believe that there was a certain endangerment of free speech here, especially given the general prudishness of the American press. We believe our readers are mature enough to look at these images."
- Gil Kaufman