Cartoons spark backlash at UH

By Beverly Creamer
Advertiser Education Writer

Cartoons published in recent weeks in Ka Leo 'O Hawai'i, the University of Hawai'i-Manoa student newspaper, have unleashed a torrent of outrage on the Manoa campus with angry students charging that the comics are anti-Semitic, bash gays and promote an environment of hatred.

More than 50 students crowded a Board of Publications meeting late Thursday to hear complaints about "offensive" cartoons and articles they said are changing the climate on Hawai'i's flagship state university campus. Two depicted Hitler, one with the caption "Hitler wasn't all that bad a guy." Others used derogatory terminology for women, homosexuals and Jews.

"I was shocked by the dissemination of such insulting and derogatory content and depictions," Johanna Afshani, a recent UH Law School graduate and member of the Jewish organization Shaloha Hillel, said during the emotional meeting. "I cannot believe that a college newspaper would allow such racist and offensive views to be circulated."

Professor Michael Leitner, faculty adviser to Shaloha Hillel, has demanded that cartoonist Casey Ishitani and Opinion editor Lance D. Collins be fired, and that Ka Leo print a half-page apology, along with requiring all editors to attend training on civil rights, civil liberties and journalistic ethics.

Ka Leo editor Mary Vorsino said the cartoons were meant as parodies. Vorsino said she's not going to fire anyone and will print her official response to Leitner in Tuesday's issue of Ka Leo.

"I hear their concerns and understand the thinking behind their request and would like to come to a remedy," she said. She said she would institute stronger staff guidelines, create tougher policies to scrutinize material before publication and provide additional training for staff about diversity issues and civil rights.

Vorsino said she would turn to faculty adviser Jay Hartwell more often "to help us gauge where the line is" between journalistic ethics and First Amendment rights of freedom of speech.

Vorsino said the cartoons and a Valentine's Day special about women, which included "the crack whore" and "big-booty-ho" among categories of dates, were also intended as parodies. And she said she and other Ka Leo editors had met with UH Gender Equity Counselor Beverly McCreary to discuss issues, "including how to best present a parody and how journalists can be sensitive to rape, sexual assaults and stereotypes."

"If I feel it will inflict harm on people I would feel like it shouldn't be printed," Vorsino said. "But just because it's sensitive, doesn't mean it shouldn't be printed. A lot of sensitive issues do need to be printed."

These new concerns come after strong statements in the past few weeks from President Evan Dobelle that hate crimes or any type of harassment or discrimination based on sexual orientation will not be tolerated on any UH campus.

In the past few months Manoa has reinstituted "safe zone" trainings as part of the newly strengthened Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT) Student Services Office. The program creates a cadre of "allies" throughout campus with an understanding of these issues, and a comforting environment in which to talk about them.

But speakers at the Board of Publications meeting called for more to be done, including forums and trainings on diversity sensitivity throughout campus.

"The Ka Leo cartoon section has repeatedly undermined the values of tolerance and community," said Amy Donahue, a graduate student in the Philosophy Department. "I have, on a routine basis, opened this rag to its cartoon page to find myself, and other students like me, called disgusting, the worst of the low. 'Gay' is thrown about as an insult."

McCreary said forums and sensitivity trainings are definitely needed throughout campus to teach all how to "celebrate differences" and explore "who we are as people and who we are becoming." McCreary said she will work with the director of New Student Orientation to add such trainings to the orientation process in the summer.

And she hopes to add more such training around issues of gender and race to regular floor meetings in the dorms. But she said that likely will not happen until next semester.

Hartwell said Ka Leo will sponsor a forum on these issues in April, with time and place to be announced later.

As adviser to the student publication, Hartwell is always available for consultation with student journalists, but all decisions are made by the students — part of the learning process in student journalism.

"What I hope," he said, "is that when they're making a decision about something that may be controversial, they're asking themselves, 'Is this going to promote constructive discussion?' "

Hartwell said the "hands-off" policy is a general standard for advisers to student publications nationwide to provide student journalists with freedom to learn and speak.

"Administrative review of student content has a chilling effect on the students' only independent voice on campus," he said. "Administrative review inhibits student learning, dampens ambition, keeps students from taking responsibility for their content and limits the risk-taking through which students and journalism grow."

He added that administrative review of student content makes the university liable for content, and this has been upheld in court decisions.

"The Department of Education paid $80,000 in 1998 to settle a complaint brought against Kalaheo High School yearbook for using language derogatory to African Americans," he said. In light of this, the Ka Leo matter is being watched closely by high schools and other college campuses.

Kathy Lawrence, director of student publications at the University of Texas-Austin, said that advisers are not there to edit student newspapers, and whatever happens is part of a learning process for student journalists.

"Reviewing copy — saving the students from their mistakes — negates student ownership," Lawrence said. "It's painful sometimes for them to learn from mistakes, but those lessons are the best ones, the ones that last."

Leitner's complaint asking for redress, goes first to Ka Leo for response, Hartwell said, and if Leitner is not satisfied, will then go before the Board of Publications. That could occur as late as May. The board oversees the newspaper, and supports it with student fees.

Reach Beverly Creamer at bcreamer@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8013.

Correction: Kathy Lawrence is not immediate past president of College Media Advisers Inc. Information in a previous version of this story was incorrect.