The editor-in-chief and opinion editor of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign's student paper, The Daily Illini, were suspended from the paper Wednesday after printing many of the controversial cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed that recently incited anti-Western riots in the Middle East. Meanwhile, publications at Dartmouth also recently printed the cartoons with no noticeable student or administrative outcry.
At the College, campus publications including the Dartmouth Free Press and the Dartmouth Review both printed copies of the cartoons in recent issues. While the Dartmouth Review is an independent entity, the Dartmouth Free Press is funded by the Committee on Student Organizations, a group that receives its funding from mandatory student activities fees.
Dean of the College James Larimore spoke with The Dartmouth about offensive materials in student publications.
When asked if the openly anti-Muslim cartoons violated the College's principle of community, Larimore answered indirectly.
"If they haven't violated College policy or the law then we don't intervene," Larimore said, not specifically responding whether the cartoons had violated any policy.
Larimore's interpretation could allow student publications to run the violently anti-Semitic Middle Eastern responses to the cartoons, most which lampoon the holocaust and Jews generally, he said.
To answer specific legal questions concerning the College and its sponsored publications, Dartmouth General Counsel Robert Donin refused to release a statement and did not respond to The Dartmouth's request for an interview.
Most national newspapers have refrained from publishing the Mohammed-themed cartoons, though multiple European papers printed them since they first appeared last fall in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.
Unlike at Dartmouth, the cartoons sparked a round of protests at the University of Illinois, which caused the paper's board of directors to suspend Editor-in-Chief Acton Gorton and Opinion Editor Chuck Prochaska Tuesday afternoon.
The cartoons show various unflattering images of Mohammed, including one in which the prophet is depicted as a terrorist wearing a turban shaped like a bomb and another where he turns away terrorists from heaven, because there are supposedly no more virgins to offer the martyrs.
Gorton, who spent three years in the army as a medic and paratrooper before coming to the University of Illinois, stood by his decision to run the cartoons.
"This is not a publicity stunt, and this wasn't an easy decision," Gorton told the Chicago Tribune. "I was stressed and couldn't sleep at night. But I just felt it was an important issue to address in the newspaper."
Gorton said he consulted with a variety of staff members and faculty members before running the cartoons and expressed bitterness at the paper's actions.
"I pretty much have an idea how this is going to run, and this is a thinly veiled attempt to remove me from my position," Gorton said.
Gorton took control of the paper on Jan. 1 after a year-long tenure, according to The Daily Illini's Managing Editor Shira Weissman, presently acting in Gorton's stead.
In an interview with The Dartmouth, Weissman said Gorton was suspended by the paper's staff following a meeting Monday night.
"He has not been fired, I want to make that clear. He's been suspended with pay," she said. "The students were not the ones that made that decision though," referring to the decision made by a group of alumni and faculty members that oversee the newspaper.
When asked further questions about the University's power over the Daily Illini, Weissman abruptly ended the interview and did not respond to subsequent phone calls.
The paper published an editorial Monday castigating the editor, calling Gorton's actions "a blatant abuse of power" from a "renegade editor who firmly believes that his will is also the will of the paper."
Mary Cory, the publisher and general manager for Illini Media Co., said a student task force has been formed to investigate the matter. The task force will meet for two weeks before deciding whether or not to fire Gorton.
In the interim, the paper's other managing editor, Jason Koch, has taken charge with Weissman as interim co-editor.
