That some LGBTQ communities on American campuses are hyper-sensitive to certain kinds of political commentary is well known to College Insurrection readers.

The cartoonist for the The Arizona Daily Wildcat, the student publication of the University of Arizona -Tucson, was fired in the wake of complaints about an off-color comic strip that was recently published.  Additionally, the editor-in-chief of the University of Arizona’s student newspaper apologized to the school and formally placed the paper’s editorial policy under review.

An article on KVOA.com in Tucson reports that:

The Arizona Daily Wildcat, a student run newspaper on the University of Arizona campus, is reviewing its editorial policies after a questionable comic strip was published.

The cartoon composed by student D.C. Parsons depicted a father and son having a conversation. In it the father tells the son, “ya know son…if you ever tell me you’re gay…I will shoot you with my shotgun, roll you up in a carpet and throw you off a bridge.” The son responds by telling the father, “well I guess that’s what you call a ‘Fruit Roll up.”

The editor-in-chief Kristina Bui released the following statement, “The intention of Tuesday’s comic strip was to satirize hate speech and the root of crimes against the LGBTQ community by highlighting its horrors, not by making light of them. This is something I thought was apparent as I rushed to finalize pages before deadline, but it was also something I did not think through. I deeply regret not taking any time to consider how the cartoon’s cynicism and satire would play out in print.

It is my responsibility to finalize the pages at the end of each night, and I made the mistake of automatically finalizing this one without considering the perceptions and perspectives of others.

I will not be resigning, but I do recognize that the cartoon’s failure hindered the progress the LGBTQ community has seen in the recent past. Part of progress also comes from owning up to mistakes that you regret and engaging in dialogue about them. This one was mine, and I hope the UA community will continue to engage in dialogue about how the Daily Wildcat and similar institutions can shed light on important, sensitive issues such as this without trivializing the experiences of others.”

The cartoonist D.C. Parsons was terminated Wednesday night. Some students question why he lost his position with the paper when the editor did not, “I feel like the editor is the one who should have been fired instead of the cartoonist,” said Adam Bower, a UA freshman. Another student Tianna Fields said, “I mean it doesn’t seem fair that he should be fired and she let it happen.”

News 4 Tucson reached out to Parson but he did not return requests for comment. He did, however, tweet about the incident, “had to write my first public apology for the paper for comic on Tuesday. Woops!!!” Parsons letter of apology appeared in Thursday’s edition of the Wildcat. Bui told News 4 Tucson she requested that Parsons write the letter.