More than 1500 copies of the Nov. 2 Rutgers U. Camden student paper, the Gleaner, were taken from campus newsstands and burned. Apparently, whoever appropriated the papers was upset over an editorial cartoon featuring a party scene with a man swinging from a chandelier saying, “Party! This isn’t a party, this is cultural awareness.”
John Barna, editor of the Gleaner, explained that the cartoon was intended to point out an ambiguity in a student association ruling that appropriates funds only for “cultural or educational” reasons. “They didn’t define what they meant,” Barna said. Under the present law, any group wanting to throw a party with student funds could draw up a list of officers and say it was for “cultural or educational” reasons and get the money “as long as it sounded good,” Barna said. In fact, Barna claimed that one such group was formed just to get money for a party, and the student government gave it $600.
The cartoon was immediately attacked as a direct racial slur by the Latin American Student Organization, which was sponsoring a “cultural awareness festival,” Barna said that he could understand how the cartoon could be misinterpreted, but he also said that he had previously published an editorial backing the funding of the LASO event and blasting the student government for being “wishy-washy” in providing the necessary money. Barna also said the cartoon was passed unanimously by an 11-member editorial board.
The LASO presented Barna with four demands: that a retraction be printed on the front page and that a LASO member be present during the retraction’s layout; that an apology from the editorial board be printed to anyone offended by the cartoon; that Barna and the cartoonist resign; and that anyone wishing to write a letter protesting the cartoon be guaranteed space in the paper. Barna said an apology and a clarification were published in the next issue, and an extra page for letters was provided—something that has been done before.
An additional 2,000 copies of the paper with the cartoon were printed after the theft was discovered, although many of them also landed in the trash barrel, Barna said.