The Old College Try

OCTOBER 4--The educators at the University of Louisiana at Monroe, where white students in blackface recently reenacted the 'Jena 6' attack, are rather touchy when it comes to news coverage of the racially charged incident. In fact, the public university is threatening TSG with legal action over our use of the school's logo in connection with an October 2 story that first disclosed the 'Jena 6' incident. Photos and video from the reenactment were posted to the Facebook page of one ULM student, who yanked the images in the face of harsh criticism from fellow students. After TSG disclosed details of the tasteless reenactment and published the photos and video, ULM President James Cofer called the parody a 'callous and irresponsible act.' He has also noted that, 'We don't sweep things under rugs here. We need to learn on a whole number of levels from this experience.' Shortly after our story was published, a university official asked TSG to remove ULM's logo from a rotating series of images on the site's front page. We declined, explaining that the inclusion of the logo was a 'fair use' of the image to illustrate a newsworthy story. Though the logo was subsequently removed yesterday when our featured document was changed, the university today faxed the below letter threatening legal action. The letter was signed by ULM administrator Wayne Brumsfield, who told a university forum Tuesday night that, 'Tolerance and sensitivity are very important issues for all students as you grow and learn.' The logo in question can be seen at right. (1 page)