Religious cartoon sparks outrage - again!

A cartoon depicting a religious figure in an unsavory manner has sparked controversy on a college campus.

Sound familiar?

It’s déjà vu all over again – this time the University of Oregon is playing host to the drama. The Associated Press reports:

Anti-Christian cartoons in a University of Oregon student newspaper, The Insurgent, has riled students, local Catholic organizations and now involves national cable TV commentator Bill O'Reilly.

Many say the cartoons in the March issue overstep the First Amendment and want U of O President Dave Frohnmayer to step in.

The conservative O'Reilly says Frohnmayer is a coward who should be fired and that the issue is one of hate, not free speech.

The cartoon in question can be found at this link. I’d put the image on this blog, but haven’t found a suitable jpg or gif.

In February, I took a very public stand on a cartoon depicting the Prophet Mohammad as a terrorist. At the time, I was editor in chief of The Badger Herald and led the paper as it became the first publication in Wisconsin to share the picture – a cartoon that had been sparking riots worldwide.

In defending my editorial decision, I went on Bill O’Reilly’s show and found a rather receptive Fox News posture. So naturally I was stunned when I learned that he has come out in absolute condemnation of this cartoon. Hypocrisy seemed rather apparent.

But I was wrong. The devil truly lies in the details here. And before everyone goes proclaiming that there is a double standard for when images insult the Muslim faith and when they insult the Christian faith, please consider the following.

First, the newspaper in question here is funded by the university. There is a big difference between a self-reliant college newspaper – which The Badger Herald is – and a dependent publication. I’ve spoken about this subject at length before, and the reality is that free speech can – and oftentimes should – be treated differently in these mediums.

Second, the Oregon paper is not publishing a newsworthy cartoon. They are not acting here as The Badger Herald and a few other publications did earlier this year; rather, they are acting as a Danish publication did last fall in sharing the image for the first time. There was no newsworthy context to this cartoon before the Oregon paper published it – the controversy here derives from original publication, not republication as part of a fact-reporting mission.

As for the image itself, it is certainly offensive. But so was the cartoon depicting the Prophet Mohammad as a terrorist. And so is any number of images shared in American newspapers every day.

The real problem is that people expect different behavior from university-funded publications than they do from independent publications. It is almost a critique of freedom of the press in reverse – the First Amendment helped ensure a marketplace where the government would never have to face the same criticisms as editors, nor would the government ever be on the hook for such criticism. This was part of the Founding Fathers’ brilliance. The problem with college-funded publications at public universities is that there is an inherent perversion of this notion. In short, if taxpayers – or even just students – are billed for printing expenses, there are a lot of individual hands feeding you. And it is much easier to bite those hands.

It’s time that the editors at the University of Oregon paper in question – and all other dependent student newspapers – come to realize that while they are in charge of their publication, their operations are meant for purposes of a more education-driven than free speech-driven nature. And when they decide to take other people’s money and use it to make a political statement, they are in way over their heads.