WASHINGTON – The college-newspaper tradition of jokey April Fools’ Day editions is as old as – well, April Fools’ Day. But the University of Virginia paper acknowledged that they made a mistake on Wednesday.
USA Today reports that The Cavalier Daily put a story on their April 1 front page headlined “ABC agents tackle Native American student outside Bodo’s Bagels,” a reference to the recent incident in which U.Va. student Martese Johnson was injured while being arrested by Alcoholic Beverage Commission officers. The sub-headline made reference to the “Trail of Schmears,” a reference to the Trail of Tears, a forced migration in the 1830s that is considered one of the most brutal incidents in Native American history.
There was also a story of a fraternity hosting a “Rosa Parks party.”
Students were not amused.
Not only did @cavalierdaily re-victimize Martese in this tactless article, they also victimized the entire Native American population
— BSA @ UVA (@BSAatUVA) April 1, 2015
Are the circumstances and hardships my race had/has to go through a joke to you? @cavalierdaily — lulu (@wamderful_) April 1, 2015
It’s essentially like they said “well if we use the other minorities we might get in trouble so let’s use the natives cuz they don’t matter”
— Hajara (@h_ouattz) April 1, 2015
The problem with being the minority is half of this school is patting the @cavalierdaily on the back for being so witty. — chiq. (@_chelsgabrielle) April 1, 2015
The Cavalier Daily posted an apology to their readers which read in part, “The April Fools edition is meant to start a conversation and provide satirical commentary on important issues. The April Fools edition is not meant to come at the expense of our peers. We neglected to foresee that these pieces would come across as the latter, and for that, we regret their publication.”
They added that they were “embarrassed that our empathy for these immensely serious issues was undermined” by the Native American piece.
They pulled both pieces from their website, and will run the apology in their next print edition.
