By Travis Pillow
As commenter Iceman so has so eloquently opined, the tapes of the Unite Party meeting, which revealed the ways Greek houses and other organizations coerce members to vote in student government elections, seem to have had little effect:
And in a dramatic turn of events, the social rejects learned: no matter how much they cry and scream about Greeks, the rest of campus just doesn’t care
For most people, this was never about Greeks. Though the the scandal has revealed the suspicion some Greeks and so-called “independents” seem to have for each other, that’s not the real story. We’ve received plenty of comments and e-mails suggesting that people want to know more about the campus political machine and the role of Florida Blue Key, an honorary society for UF student leaders.
The fight between the political machine and those who vow to destroy it, like the feud between Greeks and non-Greeks, has long been a non-issue for everyone except a few obsessive extremists on both sides. But every so often, some scandal brings the matter to a head.
SG’s $14 million budget and access to the coveted resume lines conferred by campus leadership positions are controlled by a system of back-room deals. Perhaps more people would care if they could see how that system works. Thanks to court documents stored in the vault of the Alachua County Courthouse, we can.
In the mid-nineties, Charlie Grapski, by most accounts an anti-Florida Blue Key zealot, launched a campaign for president of the student body. FBK members working on behalf of the FOCUS party (the Unite Party circa 1995, its name an acronym for Fuck Off Charlie, U Suck), published fliers on campus with a falsified version of Grapski’s criminal record suggesting he was a child molester.
FBK has long sought to dispell the notion that it plays any role student government elections. Grapski sued the group, along with several of its members, for defamation. For the honorary society to be held liable, Grapski had to prove that FBK was materially involved in supporting the FOCUS Party. The ensuing sworn depositions and testimony lifted the veil of the campus political machine.
In one deposition, former Student Body President Howard Christopher Thompkins explained the way representatives of Greek houses and other organizations, such as the Black Student Union, banded together into groups. House representatives, group leaders would divvy up various leadership positions – including student government positions, but also roles in organizing Homecoming, Gator Growl and other functions, based on who was able to “get out the vote” in SG elections. This is where the “I Voted” stickers discussed during the Unite Party meeting come into play.
Like the leadership positions themselves, admission into FBK depends on an applicant’s support of the system, because the organization admits mostly students who hold leadership positions, and as Thompkins put it, “people obviously support the people who support them.”
Thompkins’ description is now a little out of date. Houses and other organizations no longer form “super-groups” like Pi-Tau or Alpha-Delt. The four groups he mentioned have, in effect, united.
During cross-examination, Thompkins went into greater detail about the group and house system:
Thompkins said he had been a member of the SUN (Students Unite Now) party, and explained that the party names are routinely changed and recycled from year to year. Hence in recent years, the Swamp Party became the Gator Party, which became the Unite Party.
So-called “House Reps” coordinated the negotiations between different groups, according to testimony by Jackelyn Lee Speer, herself a former house rep for Alpha Delta Pi sorority:
In the recordings of the Unite Party meeting, people disperse after Part 1. Parts 2 and 3 record discussions between house reps.
Caroline Montanus of Kappa Kappa Gamma corroborated the descriptions of Speer and Thompkins:
As the Grapski case progressed, the honorary society’s involvement in SG politics was asserted many times over, as in this affidavit by disaffected former FBK member Clay Martin:
Ultimately, the judge in the case issued the following notice, which remains controversial to this day, in which he ruled that FBK had historically been involved in student government elections, and declared that it was up to the jury to decide whether the honorary had supported the FOCUS Party in particular:
In its verdict, the jury found FBK guilty of both defamation and conspiracy to defame, which would indicate that the honorary did materially support the FOCUS party:
However, FBK appealed the decision, arguing the judge was biased and, by issuing the notice posted above, had effectively decided the crucial matter of FBK’s involvement himself, instead of leaving it up to the jury. The honorary’s president-elect, J. Ryan Chandler, stated the case in an open letter posted on campus. He wrote that he was confident FBK would win on appeal, and warned “those who would tear Florida Blue Key Down, YOU WILL NEVER WIN.”
In a sense, Chandler was correct. No jury ever ruled on the appeal. Grapski settled for $85,000 and went on to press his case against the individuals who made the defamatory flier. As a result of the settlement, the case against FBK was dismissed:
We’ll never know how the case would have been decided if it had not been settled. For his part, Grapski had successfully generated a trove of sworn testimony supporting his contention that FBK actively manipulated student government elections, while the honorary society ended a multi-year legal battle that, according this letter to its members, had begun to deplete its coffers:
To this day, Chandler’s assertion holds true. The system has been reformed, to become more open and democratic and also more unified. The specific role of FBK in campus elections may not have been definitively established in court, but the organization’s involvement was beside the point. The Grapski case made the workings of the campus political machine a matter of public record, available from the Alachua County Clerk of the Court under case no. 95-4412-CA.
The real significance of the Unite Party recordings has nothing to do with a supposed feud between Greeks and non-Greeks. The recordings show that the political machine, run by Greek houses along with other groups, remains intact to this day.
Tags: Florida Blue Key • high • SG • SG elections
Even more interesting: look at who signed that letter, titled here “FBK Letter Seeking Funds.”
Ronald C. LaFace Jr., more commonly known as Ron LaFace of Capital City Consulting, is SG’s resident “lobbyist,” who receives $50,000 in Student Body funds every single year. What work he’s done for SG or UF students remains unclear at best.
Coincidence? Or I guess he’s just one of the state’s “best and brightest leaders.”
[...] The Print posts older documents from the Grapski civil trial, circa 1997-1998 that adds historical validity to the GDI rhetoric [...]
I only now discovered this story – unfortunately too late to correct a growing falsity propagated by FBK. FBK did NOT “appeal” the case. Nor did I “settle” the case.
The Jury found FBK guilty on all counts. FBK was held liable for a judgment of $250,000 as awarded by the jury – which it shared joint and severally with the individual members.
The so-called “settlement” was not about the verdict or the judgment. It was a “settlement” of who would pay what portions of the judgment. There were three defendants including FBK. The “settlement” agrees to allow FBK pay 1/3rd of the judgment – on the basis that they agreed NOT to appeal and accepted the guilty verdict and judgment – and that all other damages would be paid by the individual members who were directly sued and found guilty and liable as well.
This is where the $85,000 figure comes in. It is 1/3rd of the Jury’s award (which was $100,000 more than the $150,000 I asked the Jury to award).
The case was then effectively reheard in a separate but related matter. Defendant Peter Vlcek was severed, mid-trial, from the original trial due to a “convenient” auto accident at the end of the first week of the trial. Vlcek, however, was brought back as a witness for the defense – in particular by John McGovern – and testified at trial.
In 1999 Vlcek was tried on the same counts. The Jury again found him guilty. This time they awarded $6 million ($1 million in compensatory and $5 million in punitive damages [due to a technicality - punitive damages were not awarded in the original trial - as it would have led to a delay in the trial and so I decided to seek compensatory damages only]).
The matter was never appealed by FBK. It was, however, appealed by John McGovern. And McGovern, acting in the interests of FBK, attempted to challenge the “Judicial Notice” cited above. So we do know what the fate of such an appeal was. The Appellate Court rejected McGovern’s appeal, including upholding the Judicial Notice, and so that stands as a legally established fact on the record.
Again I can only stress that it is essential for people to overcome the misinformation about the “settlement” which has been propagated by FBK. The trial, as you see in the verdict and judgment form above, was concluded against FBK. And FBK was found by a unanimous verdict guilty of both defamation and conspiracy along with John McGovern and later Peter Vlcek. The first jury awarded $250,000 in compensatory damages – any and/or all of it which could have been collected from any individual defendant or any of them collectively. Several months after the trial FBK entered into a “settlement” in which they formally gave up their right to appeal the case, accepting the verdict and judgment, and among other things were forced to pay $85,000 – which was 1/3rd of the Jury’s original judgment. The Judicial Notice was established as a matter of law (as an indisputable fact recognized by the Courts setting forth all the factual statements about FBK’s role in politics at UF and its relationship with the UF alumni and administration), was conceded to when FBK entered into the “settlement” on the judgment (which solely determined what portion of the judgment FBK, as one of three defendants, would directly be required to pay), and was further upheld by the First District Court of Appeals when John McGovern attempted to challenge it in his personal defense (and appeal – that even if successful – would not have altered FBK’s liability and its guilty/culpability).
Charles,
Thanks for the information! Better late than never. The writer of this story is a former editor who no longer works with us. We’ll contact him and see what he thinks. If possible, we may turn this into a story.