Mary Cory, publisher of the Illini Media Company, and Adam Jung, vice president of the Illini Media Company board of directors and graduate student, addressed The Daily Illini staff present in the newsroom Tuesday evening around 7 p.m. concerning the employment of Acton Gorton, editor in chief.

Jung announced to the staff that the board has decided to terminate Gorton immediately.

“After considering the report filed by the student task force, delivered Tuesday, Feb. 28, and additionally considering the statement provided by Acton at a hearing yesterday, the board came to the conclusion that several violations of company policy occurred in regard to the cartoons published in the Feb. 9 edition of The Daily Illini,” he said.

The employment of Chuck Prochaska, opinions editor, was left up to Managing Editor’s Jason Koch and Shira Weissman, who are currently serving as interim editors in chief, because Prochaska’s employment is a decision typically left up to an editor in chief, Jung said.

Prochaska was offered to keep his position but declined for personal reasons, Weissman said during the meeting.

The editors had been suspended with pay since Feb. 14, to investigate their decision-making and the communication made by them concerning the Danish Jyllands-Posten cartoons and the editor’s note published, according to a press release from the Illini Media Company.

“It was a very difficult process,” Cory said during the meeting. “The two-week suspension process in some ways worked and some ways didn’t.”

The publication of The Daily Illini is a collaborative process, Cory said.

Compiled by Erin Kelley