The Alabama Press Association’s Board of Directors has voted to censure Goodloe Sutton, the newspaper publisher who penned an editorial calling for the revival of the Ku Klux Klan.

The APA confirmed to AL.com it had also suspended the membership of The Democrat-Reporter, which printed the editorial on Feb. 14.

Under its bylaws, members will be allowed to address the question of expelling the newspaper at its next membership meeting. Today’s actions are believed to be the first time the group has censured a member.

Calls to The Democrat-Reporter seeking comment on the APA move went unanswered.

The APA is the state’s newspaper trade association, representing 24 daily newspapers and 99 non-daily newspapers, as well as more than 100 associate members.

Earlier in the day, Auburn University’s Journalism Advisory Council voted to revoke Sutton’s community journalism award while the University of Southern Mississippi removed him from its Journalism and Mass Communications Hall of Fame.

The moves come after Sutton published an editorial calling for the white supremacist group to return because “Democrats in the Republican Party and Democrats are plotting to raise taxes in Alabama.” Sutton later told the Montgomery Advertiser if the Klan could “clean up D.C., we’d all been better off.”

U.S. Sens. Doug Jones and Richard Shelby, as well as Reps. Terri Sewell and Martha Roby, have called for Sutton’s resignation.