Cavalier Daily cartoonist forced to resign

Barney Breen-Portnoy / Charlottesville Daily Progress
Published: September 10, 2007

Grant Woolard, the Cavalier Daily cartoonist whose comic strip titled "Ethiopian Food Fight" created a wave of controversy last week, has been forced to resign.

Woolard, artist and author of "Quirksmith," said that at a meeting with the University of Virginia student-run paper's managing board late Sunday night, he was given no choice but to quit, both as a cartoonist and as a graphics editor.

The Cavalier Daily's editor-in-chief, Herb Ladley, said he could not comment on Woolard's assertion.

"Ethiopian Food Fight" was published on Sept. 4. In it, nine almost naked black men are depicted fighting one another with an assortment of random objects.

The drawing prompted strong condemnation from the university's black community. On Wednesday evening, nearly 200 people staged a sit-in outside the paper's office in Newcomb Hall, demanding an apology and for Woolard to be fired.

The managing board met that first demand on Thursday with an apology published in the paper's lead editorial. Woolard also apologized.

"This is settled now," the dean of African-American Affairs, Maurice Apprey, said on Monday. "Also, we now have the opportunity for better dialogue between student groups and the Cavalier Daily."

"I think the young man who wrote the cartoon was operating under the principle that there can be multiple meanings to a cartoon. But what he did not seem to understand is that what you intend is not necessarily how something will be received. That shows immaturity on his part and I think this is an important lesson for him," Apprey said.

Despite the pressure that was brought to bear on the paper, the firing came as a shock to Woolard.

"I was brought into the office on Sunday, expecting a discussion," Woolard said. "But there was no discussion. A decision had already been made and it was to fire me."

One issue that irks Woolard is the lack of accountability for the paper's editors who approved the cartoon for publication. Both the operations manager and the editor-in-chief have to sign off on every cartoon that is published.

"They saw nothing wrong with it," Woolard said. "Editors should take equal blame."

According to Woolard, at least three of the paper's cartoonists have quit and others have walked off the job indefinitely to protest his firing.

"This is not just about me," Woolard said. "This is also about standing up for the First Amendment and fighting censorship."

In Monday's edition of the Cavalier Daily, the comics page featured seven Classic Comics from 2005. There was also an ad seeking new cartoonists.

Ladley characterized the situation in the comics department as a bit "up in the air right now," but said that it "will be resolved by the end of the week."

The "Ethiopian Food Fight" cartoon was only the latest in a series of controversial drawings penned by Woolard. Last year, the paper drew nationwide attention and criticism when it published a cartoon produced by Woolard that portrayed Jesus Christ being crucified on the X and Y axes of a Cartesian coordinate plane.