The former editors of Gravity Magazine, who resigned after printing a racially controversial fake advertisement last month, announced that instead of creating an issue in the fall they will focus on implementing a more professional editorial process for the humor publication.The BlackJerry advertisement features a "BlackJerry," which it bills as an alternative to the popular BlackBerry cellular phone. It depicts a black man dressed in the minstrel style offering to drive a white traveler from Waltham to the airport in his Camry.

The text beside the image reads, in part: "I don't know where the car came from or why it's missing a window, but in no time I'm doing a buck-twenty down I-90 while the BlackJerry rolls up a j and starts humming my favorite mp3s. And all for only 3/5 the cost of a BlackBerry."

Jonathan Rubinger '08, the ad's author, and Ben Douglas '08, Gravity's former editor in chief, who will remain on staff, have decided not to print an issue next semester after a meeting with leaders of several other publications and campus minority groups soon after the ad printed.

Douglas said not printing demonstrates their recognition of wrongdoing and dedication to improving their editorial process, he said.

"It is a great step that Gravity has decided to suspend publication of their magazine for a semester," Student Union President Shreeya Sinha '09 wrote in an e-mail to the Justice.

Editors resigned after the Union Senate passed a near-unanimous resolution that condemned the magazine and called on Rubinger and the editors of Gravity to apologize publicly "for the offensive material published in their latest issue" and to resign. The resolution also called for a judicial investigation into what senators called a violation of the University's code of student conduct, and asked the Senate to consider dechartering the magazine.

Douglas said he doubts that the Senate will decharter Gravity, especially since the group has taken responsibility and decided not to print a fall issue.

"Gravity has not been dechartered and while it is the discretion of the Senate," Sinha said,

The resolution also called for diversity training for incoming students and media editors, as well as "continued dialogue about cultural insensitivity on campus."

Douglas expressed disappointment with the resolution. "The resolution itself breaks the Rights and Responsibilities section 18 itself. A lot of things in this resolution were unprofessional."

Section 18 states that "disciplinary action against a student may be implemented only through referral of a violation to the appropriate administrator within the Department of Student Development and Conduct."

But Sinha said the resolution was a step in the right direction.

"Our resolution listed the ways we would consider solving this situation-both in the immediate and in the long-term," Sinha said.

Gravity Magazine will most likely return in spring 2008, Douglas said. Before that time, Douglas, also the manager of the Brandeis Media Board, said he aims also to "increase the professionalism and integrity of the media publications on campus" as a whole.

The media board, a coalition of campus publications, including the Justice, meets every other week with Assistant Dean of Student Life in support of diversity Jamele Adams to discuss various media issues. The media board is supposed to overview all media on campus and promote integrity.

Initially, some Union officials and students suggested that campus publications receive external campus oversight prior to publication.

"We were talking about some sort of review process, but that still needs a lot of work because right now it looks very impractical from a lot of sides," Douglas said.

Douglas posed several ideas for the board, including writing up a media mission statement that may go in the fine print of its member publications.

"We're going to write up a mission statement, kind of our guidelines what we, as the media, try to represent at Brandeis," he said. "That would attempt to really claim a lot of responsibility for what media publish."

There has also been talk among leaders of campus publications about recruiting more members from varying perspectives.

"The problem with the Gravity fiasco was that there wasn't the perspective there of someone who would be offended by this," Douglas said of the all-white staff.

In an effort to keep the publication going next semester, members of Gravity have discussed putting something online, but nothing is certain yet, Douglas said.

"People on staff really want to do something next semester because stopping publishing isn't going to do anything, but we're not really sure what format, what medium," he said.