In my time in the UF Student Senate, many things have turned my stomach.
I witnessed an attempt to ignore actual numbers by gerrymandering Student Senate districts in order to favor the Unite Party. I’ve seen the Senate vote not to impeach the Supervisor of Elections, despite her acknowledging the charges against her were true.
I’ve watched the Unite Party promote Katie Waldman to chairwoman of the Allocations Committee despite her ethical failings while she was vice chairwoman of the Rules and Ethics Committee. In case people have forgotten, Waldman was standing alongside former Unite Senator and Senate Pro Tempore Jason Tiemeier when he threw away more than 200 copies of an issue of the Alligator that endorsed our party last spring. After the incident, Waldman remained silent about her involvement until Tiemeier implicated her in his belated apology.
Last night was truly a disgusting display of arrogance and pettiness that deserves recognition. With absolutely no dissent from the Unite Party, the resolution supporting the Alligator’s efforts to save its racks was defeated.
The Alligator has been an independently operated student-run newspaper for more than 30 years. To have its campus distribution regulated by the university’s administration is an affront to its independence. The whole reason the Alligator became independent was due to a disagreement between the paper and administration.
What is there to stop them from blocking the paper’s circulation on campus now that the Alligator has to distribute the news in leased, university-owned bins?
But the Unite Party doesn’t care. Though members promised to be your representatives, to hold the values of the students as their own and advocate for you, they’re on the administration’s leash. They’ll keep advocating for the interests of the administration to protect their precious resume lines and recommendation letters.
The leaders our campus needs are not those that will bend to the administration like well-trained lap dogs.
What was right was allowing David Denslow Jr., who has a doctorate in economics, to finish his research on the ramifications of the university’s proposal.
What was right is not what we got.
What we got was a vote to change the name of the resolution in order to make it look like the Unite Party did not vote against freedom of the press.
What we got was the administration’s lap dogs pretending they knew more about economics than Denslow.
What we got was yet another confirmation that the Unite Party is only united behind its self-serving interests and the administration’s approval.
