Student journalists at Calvin College are being given an unexpected lesson: When the subject is piety, there are limits to parody.
The annual spoof issue of the student newspaper, Chimes, often has ruffled feathers among conservatives at the Christian college. But this spring the college said staffers went too far when they parodied "Today," a daily devotional published by the Christian Reformed Church.
The spoof version, dubbed "Cliche," ran afoul of campus censors who had trouble with some of its mock meditations and prayer parodies. They also objected when it poked fun at Calvin benefactor and gubernatorial candidate Dick DeVos and James Dobson, head of Focus on the Family.
After a three-week standoff between the Chimes staff and a subcommittee of the college's Student Life Committee, the newspaper, led by Editor-in-Chief Nana Yaa Dodi, announced Friday it would not publish "Cliche."
Scott Admiraal, a Grand Rapids senior who worked on the spoof, said when staffers chose the format, they assumed not everyone would like it.
"At the same time, by using this format, we knew we could make a comment we could not make in a dry, academic way," he said.
Despite the publishing ban, the tract found its way onto the Internet, a move that led to the firing of two Chimes staffers, college officials said.
Though the so-called "spoof subcommittee" had served in an advisory capacity in past years, the panel was given more power this year and demanded changes.
"The prayers invoke God's name inappropriately and the Bible passages in some cases are not used in a context that is honoring the holy Word of God," said the committee's memo to the Chimes staffers.
A tongue-in-cheek meditation that encouraged readers to revere DeVos for his family's donations to Calvin also was forbidden. "Don't critique a friend of the college merely because he is a friend," they warned the editors.
The decision to censor the DeVos reference proves their satire was on target, Admiraal said. "The whole point was that we were pandering to donors' dollars," he said.
As for the references to Dobson, former managing editor Justin Pot said they were willing to change them to "Jim Dorbsin" to avoid legal problems.
"The spoof for a long time has been a sensitive thing," said Pot, a junior from Ontario. "But we never thought it would come to this."
Jennifer VanAntwerp, an assistant professor of engineering who chaired the spoof subcommittee, said the rules changed this year to include veto power over the final product. The Student Life Committee, which includes faculty, students and administrators, always has held final authority over college-funded activities, she said.
"Is the content edgier this year than in other years? Not really," she said. "We probably would have blocked things in previous years, too."
VanAntwerp said she was disappointed by the end-run publication of "Cliche" on the Web. "We're a community and we're tying to come to a community decision. We all in good faith followed that process."
On Friday, college officials said editor Dodi fired Admiraal and Pot, in part because she believed they were involved in putting the spoof online. It is on a Web site registered to a Chimes alumni, students said.
Both Pot and Admiraal said they did not know how the forbidden tract made it online. Pot said he resigned from Chimes after a discussion with Dodi, who declined to be interviewed. Admiraal could not immediately be reached for comment on the firing.
Pot acknowledged he knew the alumnus who posted the spoof, but said they are not close friends. The junior said the edition has been on Chimes' computer servers for three weeks.
The newspaper staff was not without its defenders on the subcommittee.
Christopher Smit, an assistant professor of communication arts and sciences, said he argued for publication.
The 1996 Calvin graduate said the spoof is taken too seriously by some. "I agree that they pushed some buttons, but they knew they would set off alarms," he said.
"When I look into this thing and see what's under it, I respect what's under it."
This being the 21st century, the issue has been placed online, of course.
