EDMONTON (CUP) — Two editors of a student newspaper at the University of Calgary were suspended without pay Mar. 14, after publishing the nude photograph of a stripper earlier in the month.
The picture, which was taken at their student union’s Sexual Health Awareness Show, depicted full-frontal nudity, with a woman wearing a chain-mail bikini. The accompanying article focused on the show’s dancers parading through the campus food court in revealing attire.
The public outcry that erupted from its publishing ranged from the student union saying the photo was in “poor taste,” to a university vice-president calling it “gratuitous, graphic and entirely unacceptable.” Additionally, the photographed exotic dancer, who goes by the stage name Honey Houston and happens to be a student at the university, has demanded the Gauntlet be shut down.
The paper’s board of directors suspended editor-in-chief Ben Li and news editor Dale Miller, citing their failure to “meaningfully address the controversy of (the) event” in the 230-word article that accompanied the photo, and for not responding to the public outcry in a timely fashion.
Li appeared unrepentant and said he and Miller would be back from suspension in a week,
“Nude images will run again, as they have in past issues of the Gauntlet,” said Li. “We will run articles that push the boundaries and will offer our student volunteers and editors an opportunity to express themselves freely,” he said.
-Cosanna Preston
CUP Alberta and Northern Bureau Chief
