SG should find another way to raise fees for Reitz renovation

If there’s any thinking going on behind the closed doors of the Unite Party, it’s clearly not very creative. Rather than offer fresh and innovative ideas about how to raise funds for a renovation of the Reitz Union, Student Body President Jordan Johnson’s Wednesday column in the Alligator recycled the same, tired rallying cry for a raise in student fees. He justified his position by using other Florida institutions as examples of “successful” fee-hiking campaigns. Instead of focusing his energy and Student Government position to encourage the Board of Trustees and the administration to search for financial solutions that would not further burden his constituency, Johnson has embraced the idea that the only way the Reitz can be renovated, his proclaimed “Heart of the Gator Nation,” is by adopting the usual go-to strategy of exploiting the labor of graduate employees. Johnson might claim to be grasping at “history,” but he is really reaching for the wallets of already underpaid and overworked graduate assistants who have rent to pay, classes to teach and families to feed. SG needs to stop showcasing its lack of originality and begin to serve as an example to other Florida universities in how it approaches these renovations, rather than justify a new fee simply because they can’t think of anything better.