Stetson University suspended publication of its student newspaper because of a controversial April Fool’s Day issue. The edition included profanity, racist jokes and a sex column advocating rape and domestic violence.

The Reporter newspaper was founded at Stetson in 1887 as Florida’s first college newspaper and has been known for poking fun at the faculty, student groups and itself in an April Fool’s Day edition. The paper changed its name to The Distorter for the April 1 edition.

But university officials say students went too far this year. University officials shut down the paper April 9 and will not publish for the remainder of the school year.

“In several instances, the Stetson Reporter has failed to uphold both its mission statement and its code of journalistic ethics,” Jim Beasley, vice president for administration at the university said in a letter to the Stetson community. “Some of the content of the Reporter has been sexist, demeaning of women and racist.”

Beasley also said student editors violated standards of “maintaining professional and ethical integrity,” as set out in the Mission Statement of the Stetson Reporter, and “abiding by standards of decency appropriate to their genre,” as the Constitution of the Student Publications Board stated.

Staff members said they were given 15 minutes to remove their things from the office because the locks were being changed.

“We’ve learned a lot in the last week as students and journalists,” said former editor-in-chief Teresa Schwarz in a report to the Associated Press. “I think that’s something they’re overlooking.”

Inside the “fake” issue, writers satirized the Howard Thurman lecture series, which is designed to promote racial dialogue, with an article about a racist Civil War enthusiast drinking beer at a podium. The weekly sex column was written in Ebonics. The paper also published phony advertisements including one that said “Kills townies dead” and another featuring profanity in giant block letters, “Because we are allowed to print it,” it said.

Administrators recently pressured the newspaper to tone down the content of its issues. After the April 1 edition, university officials said they were flooded with calls and e-mails from offended and angered alumni, faculty and students.

Newspaper staff said they were upset they were fired without warning and that newspaper staff who had no voice or participation in the paper’s editorial content lost their jobs. However, administrators said all paid staff failed to uphold their editorial responsibilities.

“Because the entire editorial board shares accountability for the decisions made, all paid staff members have been terminated from their positions with the Stetson Reporter,” Beasley said.

Administrators and student leaders will work to establish a newly constituted student newspaper in the fall.

“Part of that foundation will be our effort to maintain the appropriate freedom of student editors to pursue their work within the parameters of mutually agreed upon standards of journalistic expression,” Beasley added.

Former staff members will not be punished in any way besides losing their jobs and may reapply for positions for next fall, school officials said.