The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Badger Herald published the heinous cartoons of heresy, and is now facing the wrath of the (Salafist) Muslim Students Association and the MultiCultural Student Coalition: Cartoon debate heats up at forum.

“I believe a newspaper, when possible, should give people the information they need to conduct intelligent, well-informed debate,” Mac VerStandig, editor in chief of The Badger Herald, said at Tuesday’s forum.

While none in attendance questioned the Herald’s right to print the cartoon, several panelists — including University of Wisconsin history professor emeritus Kemal Karpat — argued the newspaper abused that right.

“Here is the danger of freedom when it is in the hands of people who are not sufficiently understanding of the world in which they live,” Karpat said. “Such freedoms can be abused when people have the means to utilize them to express their own personal preferences, likes and dislikes.”

But VerStandig insisted the Editorial Board’s decision to print the cartoon was based on its newsworthiness, rather than any religious or political statement the Herald itself wished to convey.

Specifically, he said, the decision came after University of Illinois Chancellor Richard Herman reprimanded the college newspaper there for reprinting six of the original Danish cartoons, bringing the issue from an international focus to a regional one.

“I believe in the libertarian principles that say that we gave you all the information, you can each draw your own intelligent conclusions about what’s going on in the news, what’s going on in Illinois and what’s going on throughout the world,” VerStandig said. “We printed this cartoon to help give you that information. We printed this cartoon because other people weren’t.”

Suri Kempe, the MultiCultural Student Coalition’s representative on the panel, said the Herald made an editorial decision to endorse the anti-Islamic speech the cartoon represented.

Implied in the protection of freedom of speech, Kempe argued, is that the defender of speech — The Badger Herald, in this case — is protecting speech that it believes in.

“I mean, what is the point of publishing something just for the sake of publishing it?” Kempe said. “By reprinting this picture, The Badger Herald — as an institution — claims the right to clearly express that it believes … [that Muhammad] is a terrorist, and that by extension it’s calling all Muslims terrorists.”