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Monday, June 16, 2025

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Florida Alligator
OPINION  |  COLUMNS

Gators shouldn’t support sweatshops

Feb. 22, 2010

Today and tomorrow, we’re going to have an opportunity to vote on a ballot question to register the Student Body’s opinion on whether UF should affiliate with the Worker Rights Consortium, a labor rights advocacy group that works against sweatshops through factory monitoring and investigations. If UF affiliates with the WRC, it will help ensure that UF apparel isn’t made with sweatshop labor.

Florida Alligator
OPINION  |  LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Student Alliance to improve Senate if elected for some seats

By Neil Gundavda | Feb. 22, 2010

Recently, the Alligator published an endorsement of various executive candidates and certain referenda. However, the newspaper failed to mention the other group of students running for election. Forty-seven Senate seats are being contested during the spring election, and the Student Alliance party has a slate worth an endorsement from the Alligator. Amalgamating a diverse group of students, the Student Alliance Senate slate can be credited with many of the “70 Platform Points” of the Student Alliance. The Student Alliance slate, if given a chance at a Senate majority, will quickly act to annul more than $1 million in waste in Student Government. We will swiftly post our voting records online, mitigate the lack of transparency at the legislative level, pass legislation to encourage ethics at all levels of SG, expand free printing, promote sustainable practices and enact many other of the Student Alliance party’s published initiatives. The current Senate, thoroughly dominated by a Unite Party majority, has been relegated to a lackluster rubber stamp. Never contradicting the executive, the Senate has continually refused to invoke its powers of investiture and its right to check the other branches of SG. If elected to Senate, we will reinvigorate the legislative prerogatives lost to autocratic history. Fight for your rights as students and vote for the Student Alliance Tuesday and Wednesday.

Florida Alligator
OPINION  |  LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Frank Walch’s comparison of Unite Party to Nazi leaders is offensive, shameful

By Dara Schopp | Feb. 22, 2010

As a Jew and as a decent human being, I was thoroughly offended by Frank Walch’s letter to the editor Monday that compared certain leaders of the Unite Party to Nazi leaders. Though Walch specified that he did not feel as though a Student Government politician could be described as being as evil as a Nazi figure (thankfully he was willing to grant that at the least), his letter is a blatant character-assassination attempt. Tell me, Mr. Walch, how on Earth one could possibly equate a few thousand dollars spent on alleged perks with a “fascist agenda”? How could you possibly insinuate that the hundreds of volunteers for Unite have been “coerced” into giving their time? How could you ignore the accomplishments made in the past year and instead credit the administration?

Florida Alligator
OPINION  |  LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Reitz Union renovation is unreasonable

By Jordan Dominy | Feb. 22, 2010

Monday’s editorial endorsing the Reitz Union fee is indicative of the shortsightedness of the Alligator’s editorial staff. Yes, supporting the fee so long as graduate assistants are exempted from it seems like a good idea. I’m a teaching assistant, and I, too, find the logic that leads to this enticing because I stand to benefit from it. However, there is nothing that Student Government can do to assure us that this fee will be waived for graduate assistants. The Student Body President — Jordan Johnson now, and whoever his successor may be — is merely one member of the board of trustees and can only propose such a waiver. Moreover, as it stands on the day of an election that puts such an important matter to vote, a waiver of the Reitz Union fee for graduate assistants has not even been officially presented to the trustees. A vote in favor of this fee is a vote based merely on the fleeting hope that UF’s administration and trustees will have the goodness in their hearts to cut some slack to those who work the hardest to keep this university running.

Florida Alligator
OPINION  |  LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Benefits of Reitz renovation will outweigh costs

By Laura Brancheau | Feb. 22, 2010

The Alligator’s endorsement of the Reitz Union referendum has me at the edge of my seat. I read the Alligator daily and recognize it as the primary and most knowledgeable source for everything going on  on campus. For weeks, I have read about the proposed student fee to repair and renovate the Reitz Union. I heard the potential price but wasn’t aware of the potential results. The Alligator Editorial Board has pulled the rug out from under my feet and made me think twice about this issue.

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