Cartoon Causes Uproar at University of Virginia

A cartoon by a University of Virginia student newspaper cartoonist causes an uproar over its controversial content. This one comes on the heels of another cartoon printed just a few days earlier. This report from Andy Guess at Inside Higher Ed goes into detail:

The University of Virginia’s student newspaper found itself backpedaling last week after publishing a cartoon that spurred spontaneous protests by students who found it racially insensitive and inflammatory. The outcry culminated on Wednesday night, when between 100 and 200 students marched to the offices of The Cavalier Daily demanding an apology and the firing of the cartoonist. Racial tensions are not necessarily a new problem at the campus and neither, for that matter, are controversial comic strips. A year ago, a pair of cartoons by the same artist, Grant Woolard, offended Christian groups and was eventually featured on The O’Reilly Factor, which garnered thousands of angry e-mails from viewers. The current uproar has so far remained a local issue at the university, which bears a legacy of discrimination as a result of Jim Crow and also has faced a more recent history of racially tinged incidents on campus. It has made concerted efforts to boost its racial diversity in recent years, including a President’s Commission on Diversity and Equity and a statement of regret earlier this year for the institution’s onetime use of slaves. The cartoon in question, printed last Tuesday, presents a scene of bald, dark-skinned men in loincloths throwing ordinary items such as a shoe and a chair at each other. The caption reads: “Ethiopian Food Fight.” The newspaper retracted the cartoon that day and removed the image from its Web site. Although that cartoon was the immediate catalyst for student action, it came on the heels of another controversial strip the previous Friday, again by Woolard, that depicted Thomas Jefferson with a whip, standing before a black woman sitting on the bed (presumably Sally Hemings), who says, “Thomas, could we try role-play for a change?” The editor of the paper, senior Herb Ladley, said it was a mixture of lapses in oversight and a failure to recognize that the “food fight” scene would be seen as controversial that resulted in the comic being published. “A lot of times we’re just making snap judgments late at night … not really sitting down and reflecting on our policy like we should,” he said. Normally, at least three sets of eyeballs see comic strips before they go to press, he explained: the graphics editor, the operations manager and Ladley himself. But in this case, there was a difference: Woolard, the cartoonist, was also the graphics editor. -more

Photo Altered Because of Obscene Gesture

Prep Football: Photo raises a furor in Carroll
BY KEVIN WHITE, OMAHA WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER.

Three Carroll High School football players face a one-game suspension for making what the school has deemed obscene hand gestures in a team photograph. The decision prompted one boy’s father to resign as a booster club president and left the local newspaper explaining its decision to publish an altered version of the photo. The controversy comes the week Carroll High is to play cross-town rival Carroll Kuemper. The photo, taken by the Carroll Daily Times Herald, appeared Monday in the newspaper’s fall sports preview section. The newspaper “blurred” four players in the photo, three of whom were making similar hand gestures and a fourth whom the newspaper judged not to be acting in a “respectable manner.” The fourth player was not suspended from playing. Every player on the team, including those obscured, was identified by name below the photo.

An editor’s note followed: “The above photo has been altered to remove hand gestures displayed by four members of the team. While we considered not publishing the photo, we felt it was not fair to the 51 young individuals who conducted themselves in a respectable manner.” In explaining her decision to run the altered photo, Ann Wilson, general manager and co-owner of the Daily Times Herald, said Monday that the players’ action “was disrespectful to the team, to us and to women, which means mothers, sisters and girlfriends.”

“Why cover it up?” she asked. “I think young people need to learn to take responsibility for their actions.” On Tuesday she added that the paper would have handled any gesture, including one not considered offensive, the same way. “Any gesture would be considered inappropriate, whether it’s a thumbs-up or anything,” she said. “If it happens again, we’d do it the exact same way.” On Monday, Wilson said she strongly opposed shooting the photo again, citing an unwillingness to take up more of the team’s time, as well as the newspaper’s time and resources. – more

Censoring the Student Press

The Illinois House and Senate have passed legislation, now under review by the governor, to protect student journalists at public colleges from administrative censorship, the Chicago Tribune reported. The legislation — similar to a measure enacted in California — is designed to reverse the impact of a 2005 federal appeals court ruling involving the paper at Governors State University, in Illinois. Inside Higher Ed

Irrepressible: Internet Freedom

This project is being started by Amnesty International to combat Internet censorship (http://irrepressible.info/)

About this campaign

The web is a great tool for sharing ideas and freedom of expression. However, efforts to try and control the Internet are growing. Internet repression is reported in countries like China, Vietnam, Tunisia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Syria. People are persecuted and imprisoned simply for criticising their government, calling for democracy and greater press freedom, or exposing human rights abuses, online.

But Internet repression is not just about governments. IT companies have helped build the systems that enable surveillance and censorship to take place. Yahoo! have supplied email users’ private data to the Chinese authorities, helping to facilitate cases of wrongful imprisonment. Microsoft and Google have both complied with government demands to actively censor Chinese users of their services.

Freedom of expression is a fundamental human right. It is one of the most precious of all rights. We should fight to protect it.