Is That Legal?

I think you've hit the nail on the head here. The newspaper is perfectly entitled to publish whatever they want, no matter how offensive some people might find it. Writing a letter of protest to the editor is a perfectly appropriate response.

The newspaper is perfectly entitled to publish whatever they want, no matter how offensive some people might find it.

True enough. On the other hand, I'm wondering why some folks (not the commenter) seem to believe that the default position on this is to be deliberately offensive -- as if the only possible means of affirming "free speech" is to openly goad an entire class of people.

Having worked at a college newspaper years ago during the first phase of the domestic "culture war," my uninformed guess is that this cartoonist is hoping somehow to wake up tomorrow morning and see the UNC flag being burned in Damascus. Everyone loves attention.

d - you're missing the point. What the cartoonist wants is to see an end to flag burning everywhere. He does this by showing, in his opinion, that Mohammed would not be happy with people's violent reactions to the cartoons, however inappropriate they are. This is harsh criticism, but hopefully might cause some Muslims to wonder "what would Mohammed do?". This same criticism can be levelled at Christians who ignore Jesus's #2 commandment of "love thy neighbor."

The Muslim Student association is missing what is most upsetting to Americans, and the right-wing in particular. What is more offensive - violence or cartoons? To express your displeasure at a cartoon while demanding an apology, while not levelling the same degree of displeasure at people rioting sends the message that violence is OK, cartoons are not.

Eric is correct in that a written protest or other peaceful protests (including economic) are proper and the Muslim Student Association should not be criticized for their form of protest.

On the other hand, after reviewing the cartoon and the MSA's letter of protest, I think I have a different definition of "bigotry" and "hate speech" than they do. The cartoon is not saying anything that many Muslims are not already saying --- cut out the crap in the name of Islam...

Muslims should not expect all non-Muslims to live by their rules. The cartoon is not offensive to Islam per se, only in that it depicts Mohammed... which is the same as the many other portraits and images of Mohammed. (see Supreme Court frieze and others at http://www.sweetness-light.com/archive/ancient-moslem-illustrations-of-mohammed-with-captions/

How about some protests over the violent protests?

One cannot infuse politics and religion together as the Muslim World does and then run around claiming racism and bigotry when a Political cartoon is published.

But this is the norm from the Muslim community; as it is with many other political groups in this country.

If you want to use the internet for terrorism planning(which Atta et al did), for your own propaganda, and for access to the free world, then you had better learn to deal with critism at any level.
How do you compare a cartoon's effect to a beheading?
How do you compare Abu Ghraib to 200,000 people slaughtered.
If reasonable Muslim clerics don't speak up for the majority of fine Muslim folk, who will?