One and a half percent. That’s the percentage of UF students who showed up to watch the Student Government debate Tuesday based on the 500-person estimate by this publication. The Freshman Leadership Council is claiming that the debate was not recorded in any manner — text, audio or video — to protect the integrity of the debate. I was told that the Alligator live-tweeted the event, which is fantastic except that Twitter is nothing but sound bites, and a paper can only print so big of an article. Where is the integrity of an event if 98.5 percent of the university cannot see it in its entirety?
I was also told through the official Facebook event page that the decision not to record the debate is not based on any established rule, nor does it apparently follow past precedence. It was merely decided by the FLC to not record the debate in any fashion. Of course, the most infuriating part about all of this is that, once again, we have a situation that hurts the Student Body, yet there is no recourse for the students. They apologized for the inconvenience, but it’s hollow at best. But that’s OK, I suppose. At least 1.5 percent of the Student Body can make an informed decision in the elections.
Tyler Johnson
UF third-year law student
Editor’s note: Doing our own math of enrollment, it is closer to 1 percent of students, not 1.5.
[A version of this story ran on page 6 on 2/19/2015]
