The College Fix

Samian Quazi, a former columnist at The Daily Texan, has started a petition that urges the University of Texas at Austin’s student newspaper to rehire Stephanie Eisner. The paper got rid of Eisner for drawing a cartoon that satirized the media’s rush to judgment on the racial aspects of the Trayvon Martin shooting. On a blog, Quazi writes:

In 2008 the cartoonist Barry Blitt drew a cover for The New Yorker that outraged rank-and-file liberals: The Obamas, dressed in Islamic fundamentalist garb, gave each other a fist bump in the White House as American flag burned in the fireplace.  Rahm Emanuel, then a Congressman, angrily declared that he would be canceling his subscription to The New Yorker. Blitt argued that he was satirizing the Right’s obsession with linking Obama to radical Islam, much as Eisner says she satirized the national media’s obsession with race in the Trayvon Martin case.

The following year, The New York Post‘s cartoonist Sean Delonas caused a firestorm of controversy with a cartoon of a dead chimpanzee and two Connecticut police officers. In the cartoon, one of the cops remarks, “They’ll have to find someone else to write the stimulus bill”.  African-American leaders were justifiably outraged at the apparent depiction of President Obama as a primate, and the Post offered an apology to those offended.

Both Blitt and Delonas drew controversial cartoons far less implicit in their capability to cause outrage and indignation. In Blitt’s case, the cartoon sought to ruffle feathers. Yet both men kept their jobs and continued to provide illustrations for their respective publications. Eisner, by contrast, was sacked for a far more ambiguous and arguably far less offensive cartoon.

This is a fundamental unfairness that The Daily Texan should rectify. Other than the UT Shuttle System and the Nursing School, The Daily Texan is my favorite institution at UT. I used to write for them as an opinion columnist, so I understand what it feels like to be pilloried by the campus community for my views. But freedom of speech includes the freedom to offend, and Eisner did not seek to offend. I have a petition on Change.org calling for her reinstatement, and I urge you to sign it.

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