Speaking of “Offensive” Cartoons in University Newspapers:

The controversy Eugene blogged about yesterday reminded me of one of the more outrageous such incidents, back in the late 1980s. UCLA suspended an editor of the student newspaper for running an editorial cartoon ridiculing affirmative action preferences. In the cartoon, a student asks a rooster on campus how it got into UCLA. The rooster responds, “affirmative action.” After the editor was sanctioned by UCLA, student editor James Taranto (now of OpinionJournal.com) reproduced the cartoon in the California State University, Northridge student newspaper and criticized UCLA officials for suspending the paper’s editor for engaging in constitutionally protected expression. Northridge officials then suspended Taranto from his editorial position for two weeks for publishing controversial material “without permission.” However, when Taranto threatened a lawsuit, the school removed the suspension from his transcript.

UPDATE: Courtesy of Mr. Taranto, here’s a reproduction of the original cartoon:
He writes, correcting my version of the story slightly:

Ha, thanks for the trip down memory lane. Actually, the UCLA editor used the threat of a lawsuit to persuade the Communications Board (a student-government committee that oversaw the Bruin) to back down, though they claimed it was because they were satisfied with his apology, which was indeed quite groveling. For me, it took an actual lawsuit, which the defendants finally agreed to settle three weeks before the trial date.