Cartoon Lands Daily Illinois Editors in Hot Water

While the Harvard Salient faced no formal repercussions for publishing four of the controversial Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammed, the executives of the Daily Illini did not get off so easily.

The publisher of the Daily Illini suspended the paper’s editor-in-chief and opinions page editor last Wednesday after the paper printed the polemical cartoons.

According to a statement published by the student newspaper at the University of Illinois, the suspensions were enacted at the request of the newsroom staff because of the failure of editors Acton H. Gorton and Chuck Prochaska to consult key leaders of the paper before publishing the cartoons. The suspensions will continue pending an investigation into how the cartoons ended up in the paper.

Last Wednesday, following the publication of four of the cartoons by the Salient in their Feb. 8 issue, Associate Dean of the College Judith H. Kidd wrote to Editor of the Salient Travis R. Kavulla ’06-’07, that the members of the Salient should be aware of potential threats in response to the publication of the cartoons. (See story page A3)

“Please be alert to the possibility that some segments of the campus and surrounding communities may be sufficiently upset by the publication of the cartoons that they may become dangerous,” Kidd wrote.

Beyond her warning, neither the Salient nor its staff faced reprimands from Harvard officials as a result of the publication.

Meanwhile, members of The Daily Illini found themselves under intense scrutiny across campus after publishing the cartoons, as a group of Muslim students and others held a protest on the main quadrangle of the University of Illinois.

In an editorial accompanying the cartoons, Gorton acknowledged that the cartoons were “bigoted and insensitive to the Islamic faith,” but stood by their publication.

“I addressed something that mainstream media was afraid to address,” Gorton said. “But I firmly believe in covering sensitive material.”

Chairman of The Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago Abdul Malik Mujahid, which represents 55 mosques and over 400,000 Muslims, called the cartoons offensive but said that the agreed with the editorial accompanying the cartoons.

“That article was not wrong but actually criticizes the commissioning of the cartoons in the first place,” Mujahid said, though he said he was dismayed at the particular insensitivity of the Daily Illini towards Islamic concerns.

“They did not use as much careful consideration as they might have with a cartoon depicting African-Americans or the Jewish community,” Mujahid said. “Islamophobia and anti-Semitism both show a degree of hate, but somehow the media continuously takes Islamophobia to be something okay.”

Junaid M. Afeef, Gorton’s attorney and a founding member of the Muslim Bar Association in Illinois, said that he felt the publisher’s decision to suspend the two editors was an overreaction and a baseless decision by the publisher, Mary Cory.

While Afeef said he regretted that the cartoons were ever drawn in the first place, he felt that Gorton’s motives were justified.

“It’s important for these types of things to be discussed and to be brought into the public sight,” Afeef said. “There is a lot of spoken and written word and art that is extremely hateful, and it wouldn’t serve our interests as a society to ignore that by saying, ‘that’s very offensive so we shouldn’t talk about it.’

Gorton said he would absolutely publish the cartoons again.

“The public should be allowed to make their own decisions about these things,” said Gorton.

—Staff writer Kathleen H.L. Pond can be reached at kpond@fas.harvard.edu.