UNIV OF ILLINOIS STUDENT NEWSPAPER'S ANTI-SEMITISM

Chancellor: U. of I.'s student paper spews anti-Semitism
The University of Illinois' student newspaper, the Daily Illini, is in hot water with the chancellor over what he says is a series of items offensive to Jews in the last two years. Urbana-Champaign Chancellor Richard Herman is demanding staff journalists undergo better training and do more to fight error. If they don't, he threatens to start a newspaper to compete with the campus paper, which is financially independent from the university. "Seeing a newspaper intentionally or otherwise continue to spew out what is broadly seen as anti-Semitic comments is just not appropriate,'' Herman said this week.

Despite the paper's status as a private business, the university repeatedly hears complaints about it from alumni and outside groups. The latest furor erupted after the newspaper published a letter to the editor last month in which a student claimed that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon once said he wanted to "burn every Palestinian child.'' Although the quote has been widely disseminated, Jewish groups say there is no evidence Sharon ever made the statement.