Every year dozens of campus newspapers publish prank issues on or near April 1. Sometimes, though, these fools go too far, at least in some people's estimation.

Three campus papers recently faced censure for such activities. At Carnegie Mellon, students found trouble by running a "racially charged" cartoon. The editor blamed his lack of proper judgment on fatigue. The University of Scranton's paper was closed after it published a parody of Mel Gibson's movie, "The Passion of the Christ." Scranton, you see, is a Jesuit institution, and certain things are sacred. And at Nebraska, students ran a special issue called "The Ghettoway," a spoof of the regular paper, "The Gateway," complete with a contrived contributor called Mindjo Bidness. How clever.

Did these students go too far? Their universities certainly think so. Everyone knows these were just jokes, but that's not always a sufficient excuse. Here's an excerpt from the linked story:

"When you engage in humor or satire, the challenge that a newspaper … faces is one of interpretation. The general idea is that people who are doing an April Fool's joke expect that people on whom it's played will understand the prankster's position," Colon said. "That's where a disconnect can take place."Advice to editors: Go ahead with your satirical issues, but be sure not to target sensitive topics, especially race.

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