The University's student-run radio station has disavowed the cover art of this semester's program guide after members of a multicultural group on campus complained that it was racially insensitive.

The cover art, published last month by WCBN, depicts a black man with oversized lips and teeth playing a guitar next to a frog wearing tennis shoes and a hat.

Students of Color of Rackham (SCOR) protested the cover, prompting the station to issue a public apology.

Rackham student Jennifer Yim, former vice president of the Students of Color of Rackham (SCOR), described the art as “demeaning.”

“The imagery of the man himself had a very striking resemblance to African-American caricatures that have been used throughout U.S. history in a demeaning way,” Yim said.

“I doubt that WCBN intended it in that way,” she added.

LSA senior Brendt Rioux, WCBN’s general manager, said the program guide was released Oct. 14 and all remaining copies were recollected and taken off stands Oct. 28 — before any complaints were filed.

Yim wrote a letter to the radio station on Nov. 7 after seeing the program guide. Several other members of SCOR also wrote letters to WCBN after seeing the artwork.

“For those of us who are racial minorities, this cover art is a message that racist images are not only tolerated by WCBN, but are used to promote what is supposed to be a radio station that simultaneously embraces diversity and freedom of expression,” Yim wrote. “For students who are not racial minorities, I am concerned that this cover art sends the message that it is okay to portray African Americans in a negative way for promotional purposes.”

The WCBN executive staff issued a statement apologizing for the cover art three days after Yim’s letter, on Nov. 10.

“The WCBN-FM Executive Staff would like to publicly apologize for the racial insensitivity of the cover art featured on the station’s Fall 2008 Program Guide,” the letter said. “The program guide was created and distributed with absolutely no malicious intent on the part of its cover artist, editor, or the WCBN community at large. However, mere good intentions provide no consolation of justification for the deeply troubling examples of institutionalized racism present in the program guide’s artwork.”

Rioux said in an interview yesterday that no one at the station raised objections to the artwork until it had already been released.

“Nobody involved in the creation of the program guide or the station at large had any ill intent in producing it,” he said. “The artist submitted the artwork and it went to print with the rest of the program guide. At the same time, everyone at the station was sent an e-mail with the program guide and (it wasn’t until) after the program guide had been printed that anyone realized that it could be taken the wrong way or misrepresent the station.”

Rioux said once WCBN staff recognized the concern, all remaining copies of the program guide were withdrawn and a public apology was drafted.

He said he hopes to avoid similar issues in the future by allowing more time for staff at the radio station and members of the public to review materials prior to release.

“We’re all coming out of this far better educated on the issues than ever before, all much more sensitive about it, and I don’t see this kind of thing ever being possible in the future again,” he said.