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Editorial The Alligator doesn’t have an SG endorsement. Here’s why. T he number of opinions sections over the last two months has decreased. You might’ve noticed that. And we feel we owe you an explanation, especially in regard to this semester’s Student Government election. For the first time in a long time, The Alligator’s Editorial Board has chosen to not endorse a political party or a set of executive candidates. This goes back to Spring 2019; when The Alligator launched a survey about what you all, our readers, wanted more of and wanted us to improve on. One of those things was our opinions section.

Our audience told us loud and clear: they didn’t want to hear our opinion anymore, and they wanted more news stories. So, this semester, we don’t have a consistent opinions section, and that’s because we wanted to dedicate space to impactful pieces and more news stories.

We feel that the diverse voices that letters to the editor and opinion columns bring are important. So, we’re still taking them. Send your pitches and letters to us at letters@alligator.org.

Still, that leads us to our lack of an SG endorsement. We felt it was important for us to dedicate more time and space to stories that would better inform you, rather than tell you who we think you should vote for.

That being said, voting for your SG officials — whoever you think best represent your interests — is important to do. On the last day of voting in this year’s SG elections, we hope you take at least five minutes to make that choice.

SG represents your interests as students, and you should make your voice heard. The people you pick manage a budget of more than $21 million from your student fees.

In the last two semesters, The Alligator has produced ambitious reporting that has held SG accountable. We hope it’s better informed your choices.

We reported on how Progressive Party, an emerging third SG party fell apart nine days after campaign season began. Most Senate and executive candidates resigned after an audio clip some deemed as transphobic from the presidential candidate was leaked on Facebook.

We’ve written about the resignations of prominent figures in Inspire Party. You found out that the Freshman Leadership Council, an SG agency, never commenced last semester. You heard that no SG legislation had been passed by the beginning of November.

Without our reporting, you wouldn’t have known about why people were protesting for blue lights on Fraternity Row. You wouldn’t have known about the attempt to impeach our Student Body president. That was after The Alligator published a story about an email between him and a national financial consultant for Trump Victory after Donald Trump Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle spoke at UF for $50,000 of your student fees. Our reporting is tenacious. It’s the truth. And we feel that it should stand on its own.

Christina Morales EDITOR

Lina Ruiz MANAGING EDITOR

River Wells MANAGING EDITOR

Although I was born in India, growing up in the U.S. has instilled in me how important it is to be civically engaged. I saw the constantly changing political climate in America, and I watched as the leaders of our country made decisions for the future of our nation. And yet, for 12 years, I was unable to participate in selecting our leaders because I was not a U.S. citizen.

This past January, I became an American citizen, and I am now able to vote in upcoming elections. I have always believed that there is no certain issue more important than the next. Our country can always improve and work toward a better future. It is for this reason that I registered as a Democrat.

To get involved in Student Government at UF, there was no prerequisite to be a U.S. citizen. Being a student is enough to be able to work to make positive changes at UF. My peers pushed me to do more for our university and to always be fighting for our Student Body. This is why I chose to run as a candidate with the Gator Party. Gator is a place where all individuals can work together to bring UF to unreachable heights.

Gator Party is composed of people who hold a great variety of political views. Our candidates’ political affiliations closely match those of the Student Body, with approximately 31 percent of Gator Party as Democrats and 35 percent as Republicans. The rest identify as non-party affiliated or are not citizens. For me, this was an important part of choosing Gator Party because it is a party that truly represents every student at this university.

I ask you all to go out and vote in the SG elections Wednesday from 8:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. It is your right as a student to vote in these elections where you decide the future of our university.

Jessica Jesurajan is a Gator Party candidate for Student Body treasurer. Citizenship is degraded by partisanship Letter to the Editor Citizenship is degraded by partisanship Jessica Jesurajan opinions@alligator.org

Trevor Pope got us sued. Now he wants your vote Letter to the Editor

Editor’s Note: The Alligator’s Editorial Board reached out to Pope about Chou’s letter. Pope referred to SG Finance Code 808.12, which prohibits money allocated to SG funded organizations to be used “in support of or against a political party at any level.”

“Because YAF is a conservative organization, who was requesting to bring a political speaker, our committee denied funding because it would violate SG Finance Codes,” Pope wrote. “I did not have a hand or say in the funding model that has caused the organization funding crisis. However my job as the next Student Body President is to fi x the current model to ensure that student organizations get the funding they deserve.” I ’m starting to lose my trust in presidential candidates with a great smile.

Smith Meyers looked like he went to the dentist’s offi ce on the daily right before he got arrested in Key West while being so drunk he thought he was in Clearwater. Michael Murphy’s smile looked like it could give you a warm cup of hot cocoa right before he essentially wired $50,000 in student fees to the Trump campaign.

Trevor Pope’s smile looked like a set of pearls recently extracted from free-range, vegan-fed deep-sea oysters as he fl atly denied having any ties to the recent federal lawsuit against UF, or to be more specifi c, the UF Board of Trustees, as they represent Student Affairs and, by extension, Student Government. “It’s a completely false scenario,” Pope said during the SG debate.

Is it now? Pope himself softened up his own stance on his culpability, later saying that his link to the lawsuit was “a stretch at best.” I think, deep down, Pope knows that he is at fault, whether he wants to admit it or not.

Pope is unequivocally the individual most to blame for the recent high profi le lawsuit against UF that resulted in the new, sloppily conceived SG fi nance model that has resulted in countless student organizations losing funding.

Let’s take a look at the facts: According to the text of the lawsuit, a student group by the name of Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) wanted $6,225 to bring in two guest speakers. Their request was denied by the Senate Allocations Committee because of a “recently added policy that prohibits non-budgeted student organizations from paying honoraria.”

Now, who was the chair of the SG committee that denied YAF the funding? Trevor Pope. Who was the primary author of the bill that directly resulted in us getting sued? None other than Trevor Pope.

The bill Pope wrote has everything to do with the lawsuit, as explained by a blog post conveniently titled “Why My Student Group Is Suing the University of Florida” by the YAF President at the time. The post cites Pope’s bill as “the last straw” before the lawsuit.

The rest is history. Impact Party changed its name to Gator Party in hopes to avoid student anger at the botched rollout of the new student organization fi nance system. Student organizations from all corners of campus faced budget cuts and hardship. Despite holding a majority of the Senate this past semester, Gator Party didn’t pass a single bill for fi nancial reform.

Would anyone like some insult to add to our injury? Pope’s committee had $13,776.97 in unused funds at the end of the year which means he really could have not written the bill and just given YAF the $6,225 they requested. None of this had to happen.

Of course, I understand it must be embarrassing to be a law student who got your own university sucked into a federal lawsuit, which must be why Pope refused to accept responsibility for his actions while on the debate stage, lying through his (beautiful) teeth.

Now tell me: does Trevor Pope deserve your vote? Zachariah Chou is a political science senior and serves as the Murphree Area Senator. Zachariah Chou opinions@alligator.org

Laura San Juan // Alligator Staff Poll worker Robert Pearson, 79, hands an “I Voted” sticker to Christi Allen, a 22-year-old journalism junior. Pearson, who has been a poll worker for the Student Government elections since 2003, said there were more than 100 students that came to Norman Hall Library to vote Feb. 18.

SG did not respond to questions on how the event was funded

By AJ Bafer Alligator Contributing Writer

UF students are overcoming the tall order of voting with free Starbucks. Students who vote for Spring Student Government elections at Norman Hall today can show proof of it at the Normal Hall’s new Starbucks location to receive a voucher for a free tall beverage from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Students can vote any time between 8:30 a.m to 8:30 p.m.

Norman Hall’s Starbucks was the advertised location for the promotion as shown on a flyer, located close to Sorority Row and not in a central area of campus.

SG combined promoting the importance of voting and the opening of the new Starbucks, Ben Lantinberg, the chief of staff for the Student Body president, wrote in an email. The events were also combined to be efficient and conserve student fees, he said.

“Student Government has planned for months to host a get out the vote event, and also planned to host programming publicizing the new Norman Hall Starbucks location that opened last week,” Lantinberg wrote in an email.

The Alligator also asked Lantinberg how much the event cost, where its funding came from and whether or not the chosen location had to do with its proximity to Greek life activities, to which he did not address or respond to even when emailed two additional times.

Student Body President Michael Murphy oversaw the project said James Tyger, the senior director of SG advising. The Alligator has emailed Murphy three times, texted twice and has called four times and didn’t receive a response.

The free coffee made Shelby Figueroa, a 20-year-old biochemistry junior, more likely to go out and vote. The Sigma Kappa member said she thinks those in Greek life were the main students taking advantage of the promotion and that she has good thoughts on the event.

“It encourages people to vote,” she said.

Inspire and Gator candidates debate campus solutions before election

SEXUAL ASSAULT, MENTAL HEALTH AND FINANCIAL HARDSHIP WERE DISCUSSED

By Hannah Phillips Alligator Staff Writer

Zoe Terner counts the steps from her classroom to the blue light as she walks home at night. Fifteen steps, and then she’s safe, she said. Ten steps, and then she’s safe.

Nick Meyer said he’s been called a homophobe and a supporter of sexual assault by students on campus. He’s a member of the LGBTQ+ caucus and a sexual assault survivor himself.

“It’s pitiful that sitting here in this room, this is what we’re united by,” Terner said. “Our experiences of violence.”

The two UF Student Government Senate candidates from opposing parties, Inspire and Gator, are running for the position of student senators in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Terner, Meyer and two other candidates gathered Monday night to debate solutions to issues like sexual assault, financial hardship and minority student experiences on campus.

The CLAS Student Council, a group that advocates for students within the college, hosted and moderated the debate between Inspire’s Terner and Emma Sanchez, a 19-year-old UF international studies sophomore and Gator Party’s Meyer and Alexandra Mattia, a 19-year-old biology and statistics freshman.

About 40 students attended, a majority of whom wore Gator Party T-shirts.

Sexual Assault In response to how candidates plan to address sexual assault on campus, Terner said Inspire will compile resources from victim advocacy groups like GatorWell and STRIVE (Sexual Trauma Interpersonal Violence Education). The resources will be put into one Canvas page for students to access at all times.

“They’re there to help when things go wrong, because we know that they will,” said Terner, a 20-year-old UF English and women’s studies sophomore.

Terner also said that Inspire has consistently advocated for the expansion of blue lights on campus to combat sexual violence.

Meyer, a 19-year-old UF international studies sophomore, said that though he supports the blue light effort, it’s not enough to prevent sexual assault from happening.

“That’s why we want to really work on prevention and protection,” Meyer said.

For the Gator Party, prevention comes in the form of the Green Dot Bystander Intervention program. The Alligator previously found that few students or professors have heard of the initiative.

Green Dot is an international program that provides training on ways to identify and respond to potentially harmful situations, according to the university’s website.

“With a bystander there, unwanted sexual advances decrease by 44 percent,” said Meyer’s companion Mattia.

Mental Health To combat insufficient mental health resources on campus, Terner said Inspire will work toward creating an additional Counseling and Wellness Center located in the center of campus.

She didn’t say how this will be achieved or where exactly it would be located.

Meyer said Gator Party will help promote the roll-out of Kognito, a national online training simulation used to help identify the signs of a student in distress. The training was adopted by UF in 2009 and has been available to students since 2013.

Gator Party plans to improve the training by pairing students with others who experience similar hardships, he said. He did not say how this will be implemented. from organizing and meeting, she said.

“All sorts of clubs and organizations with all sorts of interests can really have a physical tangible home at UF,” she said. “That’s something that really matters to us.”

She did not say how or where these spaces will be established.

Gator Party will partner with the Field and Fork Food Pantry on campus to host a parking ticket forgiveness day, Meyer said. If students donate food to the panty, one of their parking tickets would be eligible for forgiveness by the university. “Not only does it tackle the issue of food insecurity on campus,” Meyer said. “It also helps relieve the economic burden that parking tickets put on our students.”

Gator Party is calling this “Give to Forgive.” The idea is almost identical to that of UF President Kent Fuchs’ week-long initiative “Food for Fines,” announced during the week of April Fool’s, in 2018.

Meyer did not explain how long “Give to Forgive” will stay in effect or how the university will afford it.

@haphillips96 hphillips@alligator.org

Financial Hardship In 2019, the UF chapter of Young Americans for Freedom brought a lawsuit against SG that ultimately reduced the budgets of the “Big Nine” student organizations. Both parties discussed ways to uplift minority students impacted by the change, though neither mentioned the lawsuit.

Terner said Inspire will establish reservable spaces for multicultural organizations on campus. This will help dismantle the financial barriers that may prevent them