Gravity Magazine, a campus humor publication, has announced plans to develop a Web magazine this semester rather than publish in hard copy. The magazine printed a racially charged, fake advertisement last April, which was met with strong rebuke from the Student Union and other campus groups. Though the magazine pledged last May to take the semester off from printing and improve its editorial process, the staff decided to continue producing material online, at last Wednesday's meeting.

"If online is successful, we could probably take that momentum and bring it back to print," Editor in Chief Jonathan Zornow '08 said.

The controversial ad featured "BlackJerry"-a black man dressed in a zoot suit, which many students thought was a minstrel outfit, offering to drive clients to the airport-a play off the communications device, a BlackBerry.

Last May, two days after the ad's publication and subsequent meetings with Union officials, Gravity released a statement apologizing to the Brandeis community.

"There will not be a Fall '07 issue of Gravity," the statement said.

"[Gravity] will be using the coming semester to reform our publication and implement a more effective editorial hierarchy."

Speculating on how the campus will respond to Gravity's spring publication, Jonathan Rubinger '08, the author of the controversial ad, said: "We figure the campus has either lost interest or.that there will be a lot of publicity and people will be driven to pick up a copy."

Gravity staff also discussed possibly changing its name this year. Former Editor in Chief Ben Douglas '08 said a new name might make the publication easier to distribute on campus. Michael Werner '08 said, "If we change the name, we change the club."

On April 27 the Student Union passed a resolution condemning the magazine's "insensitive and disrespectful" advertisement. The resolution also said the Senate would consider dechartering the group in the fall. In addition, the Union proposed introducing "diversity training for Orientation Leaders, new students, campus publications, and other media" and a continued dialogue about diversity on campus.

While some felt the Union's resolution was appropriate, others said the response was overly harsh.

"There was a lack of an educational component," said Suahd Iddrissu '09, president of the Brandeis Black Student Association in a recent interview. "It was a harsh, rash decision to punish somebody or a group of people and move on."

Zornow said that "people need to be completely outraged at the fact that [Gravity was] censored" by the Student Union.

Jamele Adams, associate dean of student life, said the Union was "serving the interests of the Brandeis community" and that no one has any interest in "policing the products of our media groups."

Adams further explained that the administration specifically took no scolding or punitive actions, allowing the Student Union to handle this controversial issue.

Jason Gray '10, director of Union affairs, said it was "very important to the Student Union that the administration did not get involved, that students dealt with students to resolve the issue."

Union President Shreeya Sinha '09 said she looks forward to "moving past the incident itself" and "[learning] from the underlying values for the future."

She added that the Union plans to collaborate with the Brandeis Media Coalition, the representative body of campus media organizations.

"The Media Board hopefully will take some strides in being a little more visual and . hopefully exist as a dependable resource for all media groups on campus," Adams said.

In response to the worries about the Union overstepping its bounds in dealing with Gravity, Sinha reaffirmed her "respect for the autonomy of different media publications" while explaining that "Gravity is an unfortunate case where there was no proper editing structure within the club" that should have prevented the incident.

And though the Student Union resolution said that the Union would consider dechartering Gravity at the next Senate meeting, Sinha said she sees this as unlikely.

"I do not think de-chartering solves any situation, but rather open dialogue . and more club interaction will help us in the future," she said.

Moreover, Sinha explained that she plans to promote "a culture of tolerance and respect," and the Union will urge faculty to "attend cultural events on campus" and consider including diversity in their classroom curricula.

Administrative efforts "are to try and move to greater plateaus regarding diversity," Adams said, citing his State of Diversity Address, which he will deliver Oct. 1. He added that the Provost Steering Committee on Diversity and the Community Prejudice Response Taskforce, which supports activities and events on diversity, contribute to upcoming initiatives. "I I'm looking forward to see what dialogue will come out of Gravity and other media publications this semester," Sinha said.