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Around the state April Fool's issue brings college paper's shutdown
Compiled from Times wires
© St. Petersburg Times
published April 11, 2003
DeLAND -- One of the state's oldest college newspapers was shut down and the entire editorial staff fired after publishing a profanity-filled April Fool's Day issue that included racist jokes and a sex column advocating rape and domestic violence.
Stetson University on Wednesday suspended publication of the Reporter for the rest of the school year. Staff members said they were given 15 minutes to clear their belongings out of the office.
The Reporter, which the school boasts was founded in 1887, has had a tradition of poking fun at the faculty, student groups and itself with an April Fool's edition renamed the Distorter.
But school officials say the students went too far.
"There's not much in this year's Distorter that you can laugh about," Michelle Espinosa, dean of students, said Thursday.
A lecture series designed to promote racial dialogue was satirized with an article about a racist Civil War enthusiast drinking beer at the podium. The paper also included fake advertisements, such as one featuring profanity in giant block letters, "because we are allowed to print it."
"We pushed some buttons that may not have needed to be pushed," columnist August Brown said Thursday.
Some students said Thursday they thought the punishment exceeded the crime.
"It was a little offensive, but it was obviously a joke," said Liz Burdett, a freshman. "What happened to the First Amendment?"
Six alleged hijackers still eligible for bail
MIAMI -- A judge on Thursday refused a government request to revoke the possibility of bail for six men accused of hijacking a Cuban airliner to Key West at knifepoint March 19.
U.S. District Judge James Lawrence King let stand a magistrate's ruling setting $100,000 bail for each of the men, who face possible sentences of 20 years to life in prison on an air piracy indictment.
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