There has been a bit of controversy surrounding the latest issue of the Ampersand. More specifically, concern has been expressed around an article entitled “Shaniqua Jackson-Shalom for Dean of Diversity” that was published on January 30th. While my co-editor and I firmly stand behind everything that was written in this article, I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to the readers of this issue and to the writer of the article for some of its content.

On every Friday before each subsequent publication, the writers and the editors of the Ampersand get together and talk about the upcoming issue. In the past we have used themes to correlate each article in a manner that would allow both the writers and the readers understand the general “jumping off” point for our comedy. Last week we had no theme whatsoever in order to encourage all the writers to just write about what they think is funny. While for the most part I believe this tactic was effective, in this particular article it was not.

In our meeting on January 26th the idea of affirmative action was brought up as something we could lampoon. Through brainstorming we spawned the idea of an individual whose affiliation with so many different underprivileged groups made her overqualified for any position, yet definitely not deserving. With this concept in mind, my co-editor and I received the “Shaniqua Jackson-Shalom” article. Thinking that we understood the direction of the article I decided to add a few jokes that were intentionally offensive, such as a line about Mr. Sulu from Star Trek and a circumcised penis.

Although my co-editor and I believe that these additions enhanced the article and that it is in our place to make these amendments (we added jokes to every article written by members of the staff in the Jan. 30 issue, and the editors of the Ampersand in the past have done the same to many articles), it has come to our attention that we misinterpreted the idea behind the article. Therefore, I apologize for these jokes and we plan to reprint the article in the manner it was intended to be read in the next issue of the Ampersand.