A STUDENTnewspaper faced the threat of closure after a joke it made about Welsh people was interpreted as racist by the campus union.

Staff at The Saint, at St Andrews University, were locked out of their office until they agreed to have "diversity awareness training", after an article that subjected Charlotte Church, the Welsh singer, to criticism.

The article, written by Jo Kerr, the newspaper's 19-yearold editor, concerned the play Corpus Christi by Terence McNally, which portrays Jesus as a homosexual. It has attracted criticism from Welsh Christian groups, among others.

In her front page piece, Ms Kerr wrote: "At first it all sounded like something from a Monty Python sketch, participants in a comedy portraying Jesus as a gay son of an alcoholic are attacked by a not-somerry band of fundamentalist Christians from Wales.

"It's almost beyond belief (apart from the fact that I have secretly suspected the Welsh of evil doings ever since they spawned the caterwauling Charlotte Church)."

In an e-mail disseminated by the university's students' association on Wednesday, the newspaper was said to have attracted complaints from lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual (LGBT) students, dyslexics "and the Welsh".

The association said it would not give permission for the newspaper to use the office it rents from it until assurances were given over offensive material.

A compromise was reached last Friday, whereby the student journalists would undergo diversity training and articles would be vetted by the university's press office.

However, staff at the publication, which was named best student newspaper at The Herald's Scottish Student Press Awards earlier this year, were said to be fuming at what they claimed was an attempt to muzzle free expression.

Ms Kerrwas believed to be out of the country on holiday yesterday.

However, she was reported to have told the Sunday Telegraph: "The problem was a couple of people who have nothing better to do than make complaints in a self-righteous bureaucratic manner."

The move to close The Saint follows allegations of homophobia earlier in the yearwhen it printed a photograph of two male students kissing, with the word "faggot" underneath.

The person responsible was dismissed and the newspaper printed an apology in the following issue.

Simon Atkins, president of St Andrews student association, said in the e-mail that The Saint had been found to be "discriminatory against minority groups" earlier in the year.

The Saint was founded as an independent in 1997 and has gone on to win several awards.

However, concerns have been raised this year about a number of stories.

A university source said:

"The problem really has been to do with falling standards at the paper.

"There have been a number of serious gaffes and the Welsh gag was the straw that broke the camel's back."

Sophia Cottier, who was named student journalist of the year in The Herald's Scottish Student Press Awards in 2003 for herwork at The Saint, said changes this year had lead to a haemorrhage of readers.

Ms Cottier, a final year arts history undergraduate at St Andrews, said: "(The reaction) was a bit over the top, but the newspaper was already being investigated for stories it had done previously."

A spokesman for St Andrews University denied that the newspaper had been shut. "A mature compromise was reached between the student newspaper and the students' association late on Friday afternoon in an appeal hearing, " he said.

"The outcome was that the paper will continue and the next issue will be out in January, subject to it meeting a number of criteria. Perhaps the staff will need multi-cultural training in order for them to continue."