The student paper published one six-paragraph article—216 words—that did not mention itself or the April Fools' "humor" issue that prompted the satire ("The Hoya Holds Annual Cross-Lighting Ceremony in Dahlgren Quad") in the first place. The Hoya's story, "Online Satire Magazine Draws Criticism," focused on a community forum held on campus on Tuesday night to discuss the Heckler article, and several others that drew complaints.

From the Hoya:

Heckler Editor in Chief Jack Stuef (COL ’10) addressed concerns about the offensive nature of articles published in the most recent issue of the publication, and explained that the satirical articles are meant to draw attention to latent racism on campus.

Students and faculty raised questions about the intention of three articles in particular that dealt with self-segregation, sex crimes and racism.

And:

At the end of the forum, which lasted about two hours, the focus of the conversation shifted to broader institutional questions. Students and faculty at the forum discussed steps that could be taken to create an inclusive campus community.

Asked why the Hoya didn't mention itself in its coverage, its editor, Marissa Amendolia, told City Desk that the campus community was upset by more than just the one article in which her newspaper was "referenced." (Meaning: No context needed. The story was way bigger than the Hoya!) "Because of this," she wrote in an email, "in our initial article that is currently available online, we did not focus on any one of these articles but rather on the general student and faculty response."

Did the Heckler's cross burning article succeed as satire?

Said Amendolia: "According to Jack Stuef's definition of satire that he offered at the community forum on Tuesday evening, the primary goal of satire is to be humorous. When such a significant faction of his readership—and of the campus as a whole—did not find the articles to be humorous, I do not think it would be accurate to say that the article succeeded as satire."

Will there be any more Hoya coverage?

"We will absolutely be following this situation closely as it progresses into next semester. We will be examining it within the context of trends on campus that have been occurring for years, as well as following up with the proposals that were expressed at the community forum regarding actions toward a campus-wide solution."

The Voice, another student publication, already has published three articles (2,590 words) and an op-ed from a Heckler alum.

Quick update on other things Heckler: The magazine's staff sat down yesterday with the university's vice president of student affairs, Todd Olson, who had condemned "these attempts at humor" for being "deeply hurtful" and "potentially destructive."

Stuef, who has turned over the editor-in-chief job to Dan Thoennessen because he is graduating, and Heckler writers Ankit Goyal and Sam Sweeney met for about half an hour in Olson's office with Olson and two other university officials, according to Goyal (Thoennessen had an exam.)

Goyal said he and the others were basically told: Be careful what you write.

"They were just like, 'Consider the context of what's contentious on campus. You have to be aware of how it could be interpreted,'" Goyal said, adding that the university officials brought up the infamous New Yorker cover that depicted Barack Obama as a Muslim and his wife Michelle as a militant with an AK and an ammo belt. Incendiary or satire?

Olson did not respond to a request for comment.

According to Goyal, the Heckler staff was not asked at the meeting to remove the cross burning article (or anything else) from its Web site; the publication is not affiliated with the university. Goyal said he was asked what he would do differently if he had to do the whole thing over again. He said he might not have run the picture, which showed what appeared to be Ku Klux Klan members in white hoods burning a cross. The caption said: "Jubilant Hoya staffers taking part in the annual tradition."

Stuef has defended the article as is. He didn't respond to City Desk's request for comment yesterday, but he reported via Twitter that "Todd Olson shook my hand today and let us know he and his staff do read the Heckler."

UPDATE: The Hoya today posted online a "Viewpoint" by a former Heckler editor in chief, Jonathan Rapoport, which can be read here (678 words).

Vox Populi writes:

Heckler Editor-in-Chief Jack Stuef (COL ‘10) answered questions and tried to explain his point of view on a recent controversial Heckler issue at a forum Tuesday night, while students debated the articles and expressed why they were offended by the satirical articles.

Copies of the Heckler’s article about Hoya staff members holding a Ku Klux Klan-like crossburning were passed out before the forum, and much of the conversation centered on that article.

“The KKK isn’t funny,” Stuef said. “The article is to take the situation to the extreme, to show what is maybe buried in this campus.”

Stuef said that he was sorry for offending anyone, but added that with satire, offending people “comes with the terrain.”

The article goes on to talk about complaints about a separate piece in the Heckler:

Some students said they were offended by an article about the Black Student Alliance. In the article, the BSA asks Georgetown’s students not to do anything racist while BSA members are at Howard, because no one will be at Georgetown to notice and protest racism. Students at the forum thought the article suggested BSA protests, like last April’s against the Hoya April Fool’s Issue, were baseless. Stuef argued that, rather than making fun of BSA protests, it celebrated minority students for noticing racism that white students would miss.

“I hope you see you’re the heroes of this piece,” Stuef told one BSA member.

Vox Populi also reprinted a written response to the controversy from Todd Olson, the university's vice president for student affairs, who called some of the Heckler content "deeply hurtful" and "potentially destructive." He condemned "these attempts at humor which ridicule people based on race, ethnicity, gender, religion or sexual orientation and which promote violence."

For those who missed Stuef's response to the matter on City Desk, read it here. He called City Paper back last night before the forum. Then he tweeted: "Leaving to go get tarred and feathered in WGR [White-Gravenor Hall]. BRB!"

One thing straight away: Stuef stands by the article.

He says he was very much surprised by some students' reaction, which he described as "extremely" ironic in that the piece was intended to draw attention to what he described as a widespread campus problem of oblivion to racism. It's not that the KKK and cross burnings and lynchings are funny, he said; it's the fact that these Hoya staffers are going about all this offensive stuff without any self-awareness of it.

"You're supposed to laugh at the total ignorance and the ignorance of the blatant racism these people have," said Stuef, who also writes for the Onion. He speculated that some of the offended just don't get satire: "I don't know if it's a misunderstanding or a lack of experience reading satire."

Or maybe, he said, they're being oversensitive.

I also reached Ankit Goyal, a sophomore and a Heckler staff writer, who provided another defense of the story on a Facebook site set up to promote an on-campus forum tonight on "Racism and Satire" in response to the article. He writes:

As a writer for The Heckler, I think the basic problem is people are throwing around the word satire without understanding what it actually means. The point of satire is to critique a position by adopting it, and pointing out its ridiculousness.. Think of stephen colbert, he makes fun of right wing pundits by acting like them.

So what is it that we are laughing at, whats the argument of the piece. The whole "gag" is to laugh at how the blatant racism goes completely unnoticed by the hoya staff, that they are so ignorant that they dont realize the offensive nature of their own actions,and they defend them on the basis of "tradition." The whole point is not to laugh with racism, but at it and laugh at the people who commit racist acts. The real irony of the situation is that the whole point of the heckler was to denounce racial ignorance.

Goyal echoed those sentiments in our conversation. "It's mocking the Hoya, not mocking African-Americans," he said of the article. "The point is to make fun of racism, why it's so stupid, why it's so ignorant."

I asked if racism, as represented in the form of cross burnings and the like, was something to laugh about.

"I think you should be laughing at racists," Goyal said. "Satire plays an important role in terms of helping us think."

Said Stuef: "If it's done right, it's funny."

One additional note: Though it carries the Georgetown name, the Heckler is not affiliated with the university; its writers are current (and former) students. In an "Official Stuff" note on its Web site, the Heckler says that "none of what appears in this publication is intended to be harmful, and we apologize in advance for hurt feelings and/or bruised egos."

Both Stuef and Goyal were planning to attend the discussion tonight.

Well, those charges are being leveled again, this time against the Georgetown Heckler, a satirical magazine run by Georgetown students, which on Saturday published an article called "The Hoya Holds Annual Holiday Cross-Lighting Ceremony in Dahlgren Quad." In it, the cross lighting was a KKK-style cross burning, the participants donned white hoods, and lynched bodies, in the form of pinatas, hung from trees (in the piece, Georgetown President John J. DeGioia allows his son to take a whack).

The accompanying photograph of a KKK cross burning (below) had a caption that read: "Jubilant Hoya staffers taking part in the annual tradition."

The Heckler story begins:

DAHLGREN QUAD—After a challenging year during which Georgetown’s main newspaper saw a last-minute revocation of its independence from the University and extended fallout over its annual April Fool’s issue, The Hoya came together this Friday for its annual cross lighting.

Since the 1930s, the Christmas cross has stood next to Georgetown’s official Christmas tree and is meant to be a reminder of the religious importance of the holiday that the newspaper felt was already slipping from the cultural consciousness during the Roosevelt administration. The Hoya still uses the original green and red light-bulb-studded metal frame of the cross from the first cross lighting, but its wood body has had to be replaced every year since 1941 because faulty electrical wiring causes the wood to catch fire.

And later goes on:

The event began Friday with the staff’s traditional procession under the dark of night from the Leavey Center, with everyone wearing the traditional costume of a flowing white robe, white hood, and white mask, portraying the “ghosts of Christmas past.”

“It’s a time to remember our great tradition, but it’s also a time to remember some of the darkness that hangs over our past,” Hoya Features Editor Emma Richards (COL ’12) said.  “It feels cathartic to put on this white hood.  It’s about us coming together as one and exterminating these dark figures of the past that seem to loom over us.”

"I was just appalled," said John Lewis, a junior studying government and English, who is African-American. Invoking cross burnings, the KKK, and lynchings, he said, is "by no means appropriate for any type of satirical work—especially at a university like Georgetown where a lot of racial issues have been swept under the rug."

Lewis and Elizabeth Gunderson, a senior who is white and has served as president of the university's chapter of the NAACP, sent out a news release that quoted other outraged students and faculty.

Sociology professor Joseph Palacios: "Putting a burning KKK cross as a Christmas symbol is not only racist but an insult to Christians and the values of Georgetown. If this is supposed to be a humorous reaction to political correctness then one has to wonder how low one needs to go to create political humor. The editors and the writers need to do a self-examination of their deeply rooted racism, anger, and anti-Christian attitudes."

Student and NAACP chapter president Jheanelle Brown: "At the end of the day, The Heckler's article made me sick to my stomach. I...felt that my Black body became a site for White (and non-Black) students to negotiate their twisted notions under the guise of satire. The nonsense has got to stop."

History department chair Aviel Roshwald: "I am convinced that The Heckler has in fact flagrantly crossed beyond all limits of tolerance by publishing a piece that can readily be understood to glorify violence against minorities, and thereby encourage it. The First Amendment protects The Heckler's [right] to publish brainless filth. The First Amendment also protects Georgetown University's right to dissociate itself from a mouthpiece for hate-mongering."

"Student activists are demanding a proper retraction and apology from The Heckler, as well as removal of the Georgetown name and insignia from the publication and its website," the release says. "In addition, concerned students are demanding a revision of the Media Board’s procedures and guidelines concerning student publications, in order to ensure that publications are checked thoroughly to avoid unabashed bigotry. Students, unwilling to allow this issue to get swept under the rug, are raising awareness and standing up for a campus environment that celebrates diversity and welcomes all people.

In response to the Heckler article, Brian Kesten, a senior theoloy major who is white and serves as head of Georgetown's Student Commission for Unity, has organized an on-campus event tonight on "Racism and Satire."

"Why is the only context for discussing race found in humor or satire at Georgetown?" its Facebook page asks. "Why does so much satire at Georgetown target victims of hate crimes, discrimination, sexual assault or injustice?"

In response to an email request for comment, the Heckler editor, Jack Stuef, asked if he could call City Desk tonight (he's cramming for a final).

*Checked out NBC Washington's new "Moods"/Washington Is... section? I hadn't! (Sorry, vacay.) Definitely interactive. Also, leads to hilarious/tacky catchphrases at the top of the homepage (see above). My problem with this is the same problem I have with "viewers' choice awards" on reality TV shows. (Full disclosure: don't watch many reality TV shows.) The whole "America has spoken" thing smacks of a.) Regis Philbin and b.) hypergeneralization. Still, Washington has spoken...and NBC's new site, moodswings and all? Pretty baller! Or maybe not.

*WUSA-9 reports that four teenagers are being charged by Prince William County police for white supremacist-style vandalism:

First Sgt. Kim Chinn says police received a call at about 7:30 a.m. Tuesday that some sod had been pulled from a pallet and used to write "White Power," "KKK" and form a swastika at Sinclair Elementary School. She says the incident may have occurred overnight.

*BREAD & BUTTER WaTimes SCOOP: Jennifer Harper upbraids the Obama admininstration for cheapening the annual remembrance of 9/11. Biggest faux pas? Evites for families of those killed at the Pentagon.

*INSPIRATIONAL REUTERS QUOTE OF THE WEEK: "The amount of solar energy falling upon the earth's desert regions during 6 hours of a typical day equals the total amount of energy from all sources consumed by the entire population of the globe in a year's time."

*JUST IN TIME FOR VALENTINE'S DAY, SORT OF: Studies show that candlelit dinners are bad for the environment!

*AWKWARD TOWN HALL/HEALTHCARE VIDEO DU JOUR: