1) In 1912 Florida Alligator became UF’s official student newspaper. A year later it published photographs for the first time, and a summer edition was added in 1915.
2) During the Great Depression, the Alligator published an annual “Gripe and Grievance Edition,” in which students could complain about campus problems. UF, which owned the paper at the time, fretted over possible lawsuits and warned editors they could be fined for libelous remarks.
3) The Florida Alligator became a daily newspaper in 1963.
4) On Nov. 22, 1963, the same day President Kennedy was assassinated, then Alligator editor David Lawrence published an editorial condemning the Board of Student Publications for hiring the sports editor as the next Alligator editor instead of the managing editor. Lawrence was fired.
5) In 1966, the Board of Student Publications fired three Alligator editors, listing “constant and unprofessional harassment of Student Government officials and friends of the University of Florida” among the reasons for the firings.
6) Four Alligator editors quit over a dispute involving tenure for an outspoken liberal professor in 1968.
7) In 1971, Alligator editor Ron Sachs ran fliers listing abortion referral services with his story in the Alligator, earning national attention for breaking the Florida Statute prohibiting dissemination of abortion information, and defying the opposition of President O’Connell.
8) O’Connell was determined to bring the Alligator under administration control. For the Alligator staff, independence meant the university had no control over content or hiring decisions, but $94,000 in annual student fees would evaporate.
9) On Feb. 1, 1973, the Alligator was cut from the UF campus and became the Independent Florida Alligator, after conflict surrounding the 1971 distribution of the abortion fliers.
10) In 1978, Barry Klein became the first Alligator reporter to be arrested for doing his job. He was booked and fingerprinted by police for trespassing at a UF administration meeting, a meeting that is open to the public according to the Florida Sunshine Law.
11) In 1984 the Alligator sued UF to gain access to correspondence between the university and the NCAA regarding rule violations.
12) The Alligator won access to University Police records of crime victims on UF’s campus in 1986.
