The Canadian student newspaper at Western University, Ontario, has abjectly apologized for a satirical freshman issue that, it says, “appeared to promote excessive drinking, drug use and sexual advances on teaching assistants.”

One article, “So you want to date a teaching assistant?” was the target of most criticism, especially from the university’s Society of Graduate Students. “This article makes rape culture and sexual violence worse, not better, on campuses,” said the president of society, as quoted by Katherine Timpf (writing elsewhere on NRO). In addition, the London (Ontario) Abused Women’s Centre took offense.

So Western University scrapped the entire satirical part of the “Frosh” issue.

Considering the reaction, The Gazette will not distribute the Frosh Issue during orientation week. In addition, we will carry out a full retraction by removing the Frosh Issue from campus and selected articles from our website.

Frankly, how bad could it have been? The president of the University Students’ Council called it “an error in judgment for these topics [excessive drinking, drug use, and dating TAs] to be treated with irreverence.”

Irreverence? Is that all it was? Where is FIRE (the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education) when Canada needs it?