Editor Suspended Over Cartoons

From The Dartmouth:

The editor-in-chief and opinion editor of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign's student paper, The Daily Illini, were suspended from the paper Wednesday after printing many of the controversial cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed that recently incited anti-Western riots in the Middle East. Meanwhile, publications at Dartmouth also recently printed the cartoons with no noticeable student or administrative outcry.

The fact that the Illini's suspended editor in chief, Acton Gordon, is a former army medic and paratrooper just makes the story more interesting.

I wonder whether Gordon is really a "renegade editor who firmly believes that his will is also the will of the paper" (as an Illini editorial described him on Monday), or if his colleagues are simply irritated that they weren't consulted on this big decision. Also, those that suspended him were a mixed group of students and faculty. Would things be different if the paper was totally independent from the university? 

There's more coverage in the Illini's opinion secition, including a Q&A detailing the suspension process, and letters from the university's student body.