According to Evan Coyne Maloney, the phrase "hunting terrorists" is considered so offensive by Bucknell University officials that they decided to cancel a student event (whose promotional language included "Where were you during the months following September 11?" and "Major John Krenson was hunting terrorists"):

....when the students met with Kathy Owens, after she greeted the students and dispensed with the formalities of asking them how they were doing, all three students say she held up the e-mail and said, "We have a problem here." Ms. Owens then indicated the language "hunting terrorists" was the problem. The fact that this was the very first order of business discussed in the meeting backs up the students' account, and it is entirely consistent with President Mitchell's e-mail.

The only reason these students were called into the meeting was because the university objected to the phrase "hunting terrorists." The university objected so strongly that the President's Office yanked support for the event.

Considering the university's reluctance to explain, I think it's fair to ask whether the objection was in fact to the words themselves, or to the topic (i.e., the activity the words describe).

If the objection is to the words, which word? Both? Was it just the word "terrorists"? Or just the word "hunting"?

There are a lot of questions in this seemingly simple search to discern the true nature of offensiveness.

Would "looking for" or possibly "searching for and destroying" have been OK? What about the old "terminating with extreme prejudice"? If the problem was that the school didn't like the idea of pursuing terrorists at all, then it would not matter what words were used to describe the activity. Even if politically palatable jargon could have been found and agreed upon -- say, "attempting to locate and engage insurgent freedom fighters," do we know that Dean Owens would have allowed the event?

I'm not so sure. I think she might have needed further reassurance. Perhaps it would have been best to explain that the reason the hunters were hunting for the terrorists was to find them and ask them why they hate us.