The fallout from The Daily Texan鈥檚 publication of a controversial editorial cartoon is carrying on, this time in a different direction.
A UT student has launched an online petition to reinstate Stephanie Eisner, the Texan editorial cartoonist whose cartoon, she said, attacked what she saw as biased coverage of the Trayvon Martin shooting.
A 17-year old African-American, in a gated Florida community last month. Zimmerman claimed the shooting was in self-defense; Martin was unarmed. A wave of demonstrations, with protesters clad in hooded sweatshirts like Martin wore, have occurred across the county, .
In an apology, Eisner said her cartoon was of the case. But her satirical description of Martin as a 鈥渃olored boy鈥� lead to . The paper initially to publish the cartoon, before .
23 year old UT graduate nursing student Samian Quazi has launched a drive on to reinstate Eisner. He says he was inspired in parts by comments left on the Texan鈥檚 website, when it announced Eisner no longer worked there.
鈥淭hey鈥檙e overwhelmingly saying 鈥榶ou guys are a bunch of cowards for firing her and not taking responsibility for yourself as editors,鈥� or a lot of people said 鈥楬ey, she shouldn鈥檛 have been fired at all. People misinterpreted her cartoon,鈥欌�� Quazi tells KUT News. 鈥淎nd that latter was actually my position.鈥�
Quazi reiterates that belief on the petition website. 鈥淭he decision is an insult to journalistic independence, our national values of free speech and a free press, and the right to dissent from popular or prevailing viewpoints,鈥� he writes. 鈥淩egardless of one's views of the cartoon itself, we find it alarming that Ms. Eisner would be shunned and silenced for expressing her views.鈥�
鈥淚t鈥檚 not practice to go ahead and sack one of your cartoonists if they do mess up. And in this case I don鈥檛 think she was deliberately trying to be offensive at all,鈥� he says.
As of this writing, the petition, which has been up for approximately a week, has garnered under 200 signatures out of a goal of 5,000.
KUT News is awaiting comment from editors at The Daily Texan; we鈥檒l update this space with any response we receive.
