Chancellor Kenneth A. Shaw made an official statement about the recent controversy regarding a comic published in The Daily Orange at Wednesday’s meeting of the University Senate.

“I am troubled by the tone being set by certain sections of The Daily Orange, and I believe it is time that we, as a university, begin to think about the implications of what can be perceived as occasionally sexist and/or racist cartoons,” Shaw said.

The statement comes after Monday’s edition of The D.O. contained a comic strip depicting a black character robbing a white character. Students on campus protested the decision to run the comic by distributing flyers nicknaming the independent paper “The Daily Oppressor”. Several students sponsored a resolution in the Student Association to ban The D.O. from being distributed on campus.

The resolution was referred to the Committee on Administrative Operations, which can suggest changes to resolutions and makes recommendations on them. Ad-Op will hold a forum after Monday’s 7:30 p.m. SA meeting to hear public input on the resolution. Both the SA meeting and the forum are in Maxwell Auditorium.

Shaw read his previously prepared statement during the new business portion of the meeting after he was questioned about the situation.

Shaw added that although the problems with offensive material in the paper precedes the current management team, he realized that both Editor in Chief Tito Bottitta and Managing Editor Ashleigh Graf have taken steps to rectify the situation and looks forward to their results.

Although he assured the senate that the issue would be on the agenda for next meeting, which will be held February 22, the senators voted to endorse Shaw’s statement so that they could take some sort of action as soon as possible.

“Students’ memories don’t last a long time,” SA President Colin Seale said. “Acting on this now is the right thing to do.”

The endorsement passed near unanimously with only one member, Nahmin Horwitz, voting against it because of procedural reasons. Horwitz, chairman of the Agenda Committee, voted against the sentiment because he said it was not on the original agenda and the senators did not have ample time to read or debate Shaw’s statement.

Published on February 13, 2002 at 12:00 pm