Criticism and heat has been focused on Princeton University’s student newspaper in reaction to a stunning example of abuse of press rights.

In its annual joke edition, The Daily Princetonian printed a column poking fun at Jian Li, an applicant who was denied admission to the University. Li has filed a civil rights complaint against Princeton, claiming a bias against Asian students in the admissions process.

In a supposed satire of racism itself, the newspaper printed a tasteless column under the byline Lian Ji, written to resemble a letter to the admissions committee. It starts, “Hi Princeton! Remember me? I so good at math and science. Perfect 2400 SAT score. Ring bells?”

Having received a plethora of letters, the editor of the Princetonian replied with a published note defending the purpose of the column. “We hoped to lampoon racism by showing it at its most outrageous. We embraced racist language in order to strangle it.”

When peppered with phrases like “What is wrong with you no color people? Yellow people make the world go round,” the drop of merit in the intended goal of the column is lost in an ocean of naiveté and sophomoric racism.

Aside from the fact that a student paper at a private university can suffer severe repercussions (Carnegie-Mellon University’s student paper was suspended for a semester and made subject to prior review by the administration under similar circumstances), nothing so patently offensive should ever be published — even under the banner of a joke edition.

As Andrew Brown noted in his Jan. 8 column “The shifting tides of ‘P.C.’,” comedy involving sensitive or offensive issues provides a “much-needed outlet” in a society increasingly worried about political correctness. There is a line, however, that needs to be firmly drawn in front of those who don’t realize their workplace cannot be a venue for the “outlandish comedy” that has become prevalent in their personal lives — especially those who work for a newspaper.