When administrators raise tuition, students raise hell. But did Rick Scott’s war on education leave UF with no other choice?

On Sept. 16, 40 students gathered near Turlington Hall, marched to the Plaza of the Americas and hung a $35,000 price tag on “Whispering Close,” a controversial 20-foot statue of two 19th-century socialites dancing.

The demonstration, organized by Students for a Democratic Society, was inspired by the University of Florida’s recent decision to raise tuition by 15 percent — the highest increase allowed by state law — thanks to Florida’s shrinking education budget.

In the last week of April, the Florida Legislature granted university administrators permission to increase tuition by 8 percent. Shortly after, the Board of Governors approved individual requests from universities, including UF, to raise tuition by an additional 7 percent, marking this the third consecutive year that UF’s tuition increases have hit the ceiling.

At the same time, student aid is moving in the opposite direction. The Florida Bright Futures Scholarship, which serves 98 percent of undergraduates at UF, has been unable to keep up with the rising number of college applicants. This Fall, students on average received 20 percent less aid from Bright Futures than they did last year.

In Student Government elections on Sept. 27 and 28, the question, “Do you support repealing the 15 percent tuition increase at the University of Florida?” appeared on the ballot after SDS turned in more than 1,200 signatures in favor of the question, and 87 percent of students voted to repeal the increase.

Is Raising Tuition Necessary?

Janine Sikes, UF’s director of public affairs, said she empathizes with students who oppose the tuition hike, but she also said they’re looking at this situation the wrong way.

“Obviously, this is a business,” Sikes said. “But UF is a value, and they’re not recognizing that.”

She pointed out that UF students pay a relatively low fee for the quality of the education they receive. Kiplinger’s “Best Values in Public Colleges 2011” ranked UF second in the country. An equivalent review from Princeton placed UF third.

The national average for tuition at public universities is $7,600, while UF sits at $5,700. The university ranks 75 out of 594 in the nation for total tuition costs.

Additionally, UF is part of the Association of American Universities, an organization of leading research facilities, and holds one of the lowest tuition costs in the group. However, 36 percent of the 61 schools are private, placing the mean well above the national average.

“It’s impossible to get the education you expect out of flagship institutions unless we invest back into the university,” Sikes said.

UF President Bernie Machen has to balance costs to keep the school running while competing with other schools for faculty salaries and keeping programs afloat. Cuts from positions, salaries and resources have reached more than $200 million in the past four years.

Sikes said that cutting salaries can result in the loss of valuable faculty to other schools, and it doesn’t solve the problem anyway. UF’s student-to-faculty ratio is poor, she said, and overcrowding is becoming more of an issue, sometimes forcing students to sit on the floor in larger classes.

Students at least have the opportunity to take advantage of numerous scholarships and financial aid programs, Sikes added. “We, as administrators, went to school just like you guys, and I worked my way through it. And I didn’t have a Bright Futures scholarship.”

The administration is trying to improve its understanding of students’ financial needs. For the upcoming application period, each applicant will be required to fill out a Free Application for Federal Student Aid form. The hope is that the FAFSA forms will give the university a clearer picture of where students fall financially.

The mean family income on record for UF students is $105,000. Sikes said she doesn’t know if new information from the FAFSA forms will inflate or deflate that number. Nor does she know if the president will continue to support a 15 percent increase each year.

If the 15 percent increases continue, Sikes expects to see more protests like the Sept. 16 rally. “We try to balance the ability for students to speak their minds and share their opinions on tough topics.” She said this rally wasn’t the first of its kind, nor will it be the last.

If students want change, they need to look farther west, she added. “They need to pay attention to what happens in Tallahassee and proposals going forward if they want their voices heard in the future.”

“Chop from the Top”

After the Sept. 16 rally, SDS organizers were promised a meeting with Machen to discuss their demands and financial solutions, none of which involve tuition hikes. But when they went to the meeting on Sept. 23, they found it had been canceled.

“They gave us the run-around,” said Chrisley Carpio, an organizer for SDS.

SDS found out they could not see Machen without a written proposal. Carpio said the demand came as a surprise.

The group does plan to write a proposal, but not to place in Machen’s hands. Instead, its members are hoping to gain support from students.

Another rally is planned for late October, and this rally will occur in conjunction with other student groups opposed to the tuition hike. Carpio expects a much larger turnout as students begin to fully understand the impact of tuition hikes on their wallets.

To alleviate UF’s financial problems, SDS wants administrators to “chop from the top.” The group believes six-figure salaries for faculty members are unnecessary and that Sikes’s claim follows a typical appeasement pattern.

“Chop from the Top” also targets the president’s mansion. Built in 1953, the mansion’s main function was to serve as the president’s home and office.

Nowadays, since Machen moved out in 2006, it stands vacant the majority of the time, punctuated by a few social events. Still, it still needs money to be maintained. Programs are being cut, supplies can not be refilled and tuition keeps increasing, but the school pays to keep a vacant mansion’s doors open.

“We don’t see them forced to make huge financial decisions, like making the sacrifices that they demand of the student body,” said Carpio. “Only students so far are carrying the burden.”

SDS also wants administrators to acknowledge that 42 percent of students hold a part-time job, something the SERU survey, UF’s method of calculating students’ income, shies away from exploring.

Tuition has undergone a 120 percent increase in the past 10 years, shown by university records. With a weak economy and state budget cuts, the university had to, and will continue to have to, find ways of generating money to keep the school running.

Still, Carpio wants the administration to find other avenues than students’ wallets. “If the administration is bragging about how UF is so affordable, let it stay that way.”

The True “Top”

Last May, Gov. Rick Scott proposed to slash Florida’s budget by $5 billion, including $3.3 billion in education cuts. That grinds down to $703 less in state funding per student than last year and pink slips for 8,700 state workers, teachers included.

The UF Board of Trustees can only work with what its given. Since Scott cut funding to education, the university had to pick up where the budget left off, and it looked to the students.

Tuition increases bring a bitterness to the student body, but the university has been left with little choice after the budget cuts made in Tallahassee. Recent protests show that students want their voices heard about tuition, but rallies against the administration may not be enough.

Scott’s influence in education runs deep with the Board of Governors, the governing body of the state university system. He appoints 14 out of the 17 members, and these members appoint trustees to govern each of Florida’s universities.

In January, multiple groups are planning to gather in Tallahassee to protest further education cuts during the Florida Governor’s Meeting. Participants are planning to come from across Florida.

Gainesville’s chapter of SDS, Florida State University Progress Coalition, Fight Back Florida and The Tuition is Too Damn High Party all plan to converge in Tallahassee shortly after the annual state legislative session begins. Anyone who is tired of these education cuts is, of course, encouraged to go to the capitol and have their voice heard.

Editorial cartoon (top) by Diana Moreno.

For the Civic Media Center, Gainesville’s alternative library and reading room, the uncertainty has meant planning ahead. Enter the SpringBoard fundraiser.

Started in 1999, five years after the CMC was founded, it started the SpringBoard fundraiser as a dinner event. Guests pay between $10 and $20 on a sliding scale and are treated to fare catered by local restaurants and cooked by volunteers.

“It’s got a ‘punny’ name in that it’s our board fundraiser organized in the spring, but it’s also a financial springboard for us to survive the summer,” said Jimmy Schmidt, coordinator at the CMC.
In addition to food, there are raffles, silent auctions of art by local artists and a guest speaker.
Previous years’ guest speakers have included National Public Radio commentator Diane Roberts and the founder of Equality Florida, Nadine Smith.

This year, the CMC welcomes retired U.S. Army Col. Ann Wright as the event’s guest speaker. She is best known for having resigned in opposition to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq and her involvement in antiwar activism, including acts of civil disobedience.

“She is someone who was very much on the inside of things. She brings to the table a tremendous military background and a real window into the workings of the system,” said Joe Courter, board member with the CMC and head of planning for the SpringBoard fundraiser.

The CMC requires about $1,000 a week to cover operating costs and keep its doors open. A substantial portion the center’s budget is covered by $10 annual memberships, but fundraising events such as the SpringBoard are essential in ensuring the CMC’s continued existence.

“We can raise that money in the spring and fall, as well as throughout most of the winter, but in the summer it’s hit or miss,” Schmidt said. “Especially in tough times like the past few summers.”
The currently unfavorable economic climate presents nonprofit organizations like the CMC with a challenge, as donations to charities and nonprofits are among the first places many people cut back spending, Schmidt said.

“The CMC is a totally independent community sponsored organization,” he said. “Even though we’re a tiny fish in the nonprofit world, it’s a tremendous feat of grassroots organizing to keep this place sustained.”

I know that about three minutes into this, almost every man will shun away, click out of the blog post, close his laptop, and run. Don’t. Keep watching.

Staceyann teaches women to own their bodies and love themselves for being woman when history reminds of when women were pitied for not being born man.
“Pussy talk” as Staceyann likes to put it, isn’t just for women. Gender roles have evolved, and although the gap between men and women is shrinking, it still exists, and that affects society as a whole. Men are still paid more on average for the same job as women. Women are often expected to stay at home raising children rather than going into the workplace, and men are often looked down on if they choose to stay home with their children.
But the more women own their bodies, own themselves and know that they do not have to be subordinate to men – Know that they are not born a lower class than men – The more women speak this out, without fear, the smaller the gap becomes. And when women demand respect and equality from the world, they make it a more just place for everyone.

For more vagina talk, check out our DIY this month, “Safe, eco-friendly products for your vagina.“

Here are the panelists:

Rich Hirsch
Senior editor of The Miami Herald, whose city is home to the largest Haitian diaspora in the United States

Tamara Lush
Associated Press reporter

Tom Brew
Deputy editor of MSNBC.com

Jon Bougher
UF documentary student, who was in Haiti when the earthquake struck

They will speak about their experiences covering the disaster and show photos and video. After their presentations, the event will open to questions from the audience.

If you are a journalism student, you’re invited to come early at 5pm to have pizza with the Advisory Council. This is a really good opportunity to tell the Advisory Council what you think about how the college is run, your classes and professors. The Council has a good say in curriculum changes at the college, and after they speak with students on Thursday night, they will meet with the faculty of the college on Friday to discuss what students are saying. So come make your voice heard and take a roll in the direction of your education. It’s also a good way to meet some of the top editors in the state.

Update: The Fine Print will be live-tweeting from the event, so follow us for supplemental links and other good stuff. The UF College of Journalism and Communications will be shooting a video, which will will be posted next week.

Hirsch played this video, in which three of his Miami Herald colleagues reflect on their experiences reporting on the disaster:

The three-day Harvest of Hope Foundation Music and Arts Fest is back for its second year, March 12

The Harvest of Hope Foundation, a “non-profit organization that provides financial, educational, and service-oriented aid to migrant farm workers all over the country,” according to its web site, was founded by Phillip Kellerman in 1997.

Kellerman’s initial exposure to issues concerning migrant farm workers came from his involvement in 1989 with the ESCORT Migrant Education Program at the State University of New York in Oneonta, where he answered phone calls for the National Migrant Education Hotline. Kellerman says he received hundreds of calls from about 25 states, including Florida, from migrant farm workers seeking emergency aid for “vehicle repairs, housing, utilities, clothing, food, medical services and helping their children in schools.”

“I soon discovered there was not much federal, state or local help in these states. There was no help out there,” Kellerman said. “That’s what led me to set up the Harvest of Hope Foundation.”

In 2004, Kellerman moved to Gainesville.

“Before I left, a good friend of mine I worked with in Oneonta contacted her friend, Ryan Murphy,” Kellerman said. “He really liked the foundation and what I was doing.”

Murphy, who was getting his master’s degree in bilingual education at UF, worked in an afterschool literacy program called Libros de Familia, which promoted literacy to migrant children in Alachua County. The program received funding from the HOH Foundation to buy books, fund afterschool workshops and get UF students involved.

“I met with Phil, and I was excited about what he did [with the Foundation] and asked what I could do to help raise funds,” Murphy said. “I worked at No Idea Records going to school, and once I got involved with Phil, I wanted to bring the two worlds together. Knowing Harvest of Hope needed money, the most immediate thing I could do was to put on benefit shows.”

Murphy thought some bands he knew would be interested because “their politics would fall in line with helping workers and social justice issues.” Murphy asked his friends in Against Me! to play a benefit show, and “they took the ball and ran with it,” he said.

“They did a series of shows around the country and raised $18,000. It got us motivated and inspired Phil to realize other avenues of fundraising.”

“We just thought there was a really good connection between grassroots, alternative and progressive musicians and the grassroots work the Harvest of Hope Foundation was doing,” Kellerman said.

While setting up a benefit show for Against Me! and some other local bands with Ryan Detera of Café Eleven in St. Augustine, Detera mentioned he had “just become the general manager of the Fairgrounds and why don’t we do three days. I laughed because it seemed ridiculous compared to what I wanted to do.  He said, ‘You do the Fest in Gainesville. I think you would have the ability to do it here,’” Murphy said.

As a non-profit organizing an event of that size, HOH was eligible for a grant from the county. They applied and received $50,000, the largest grant ever awarded. The money comes from tax revenue received through tourism, which is then allocated to aid organizations seeking to do special events in the county.

“Once I got together with everybody who works on the Fest and motivated everyone and got them on my team, we couldn’t look back,” Murphy said.

Through both Detera and Murphy’s connections, they began to assemble the 2009 line-up for the first HOH Fest.

“I know a lot of bands, punk bands, through No Idea, and Ryan [Detera] knows smaller indie bands through Café Eleven. He was also booking through the Fairgrounds, so he was working with agents [of national bands] as well,” Murphy said.

They came up with a diverse selection of punk, indie, hip-hop, folk and acoustic.

Last year, although 7,800 tickets were sold and 17,000 people came through the gates, nothing was raised. Kellerman explains it was a first-year test, and “most first-year tests lose a ton of money.”

But Kellerman is not disappointed with last year’s turnout.

“Even though we didn’t make money, the off-shoots from the fest were wonderful. We had a lot of bands, subsequent to the fest, doing their own benefits for the Foundation, locally and around the country. Was it worth our effort? Yes!”

This year Kellerman hopes to see double the attendance of last year and give a stronger focus to the HOH Foundation cause.

“The first year we just wanted to create a general awareness of what it was all about.  This year there will be a much stronger focus on what HOH is about, with a strong emphasis at tables and the non-profit section that works with the migrant farm workers.  There will be a double CD of last year’s event available, as well as a documentary of the first year that incorporates the music and the message” on sale at the festival.

The CD is currently available now at fail-saferecords.com and interpunk.com. Three-day passes to the HOH Festival are available at harvestofhopefest.com for $49.50.

Photos courtesy of Morgan Bellinger – www.movephotography.com/ – and Celia Roberts – www.celiaroberts.com

The Queer Activist Coalition came together last October after attending the National Equality March for LGBTQ rights in Washington, D.C. We are a community- and campus-based organization with a non-hierarchical structure, and we want to work with anyone who is interested in joining the fight for equality. Our cause is only part of a larger struggle to liberate the oppressed and protect minorities from exploitation.

The QAC believes that the first and most immediate step toward social equality is to end legal inequality faced by LGBTQ people living in America. We believe that civil rights for all minority groups should be protected by the government and not determined by religious or social prejudices. The 14th Amendment to the Constitution guarantees the equal protection of all citizens under the law, and LGBTQ citizens are being denied these protections every day. The Defense of Marriage Act currently deprives LGBTQ citizens of 1,138 civil rights that are taken for granted by married heterosexual couples. In the words of Frederick Douglass, “power concedes nothing without demand.” It’s time for all of us to demand that LGBTQ citizens be given equal rights and guaranteed equal protection under the law.

We are dedicated to raising awareness in the community about these issues. We recently held a fundraiser on Feb. 4 in conjunction with the National Prayer Breakfast. The goal of the event was to show the community the influence of the religious right in our government and the role it plays in lobbying against LGBTQ rights. Our next event will be the Equality Across America (EAA) Southeast Regional Conference. EAA is the group that planned the National Equality March in Washington, D.C. last October. The conference is planned for March 19-21, times and locations TBA. For more information about how to get involved with QAC, e-mail queeractivistcoalition@gmail.com.

Joe Richard is a Fine Print columnist.

Everyone is aware of the horrible social catastrophe the people of Haiti are facing after the 7.0 earthquake that leveled Port-au-Prince and surrounding areas. The disaster will inevitably go down in history as one of the most destructive natural disasters of all time. But there are questions that the mainstream media haven’t been asking. Aside from the racist portrayals of Haitians as uncontrollable looters incapable of self-governance or self-control, virtually no one in the media has delved into the long history of U.S. involvement in Haiti, which sheds some light on why a natural disaster has turned into a social disaster worse than anything we’ve seen before.

Why is Haiti the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere? Why does the immense majority of Haitians live on less than $2 a day? Why does the capital of Port-au-Prince (which is built on a fault line) have no building codes to regulate proper building construction like similar cities? Why is the Obama administration sending thousands of troops to Haiti, instead of serious economic and humanitarian aid? Why are U.S. warships surrounding the waters off the coast and refusing to allow anyone to leave the island?

The answers to all of these questions can be found in the long history of U.S. interventions in the first modern country to abolish slavery and establish a black republic.

Born in the midst of a heroic slave rebellion in 1791, the Western world viewed Haiti as a revolutionary example of popular liberation and thus a direct threat to the colonial powers (the young United States included) and to their economic interests in the hemisphere. From the very beginning of Haiti’s slave rebellion, U.S. congressmen, many of whom were slave owners, debated the intentional strangling of the country as an example to the rest of the populations of the Caribbean. And indeed, this is what happened.

Haiti is still burdened today by a debt to France for the expropriation of French property in 1791 (also known as slaves). Haitians continue to pay France for liberating themselves and deciding that they were indeed not human property, but rather human beings. In addition, in the last 200 years Haiti has endured several U.S. interventions to overthrow popularly elected governments, as well as the brutal weight of World Bank and IMF loans, which always come with strings attached.

The U.S. was responsible for backing the two bloody dictatorships of the Duvalier family from 1957 to the point when “Baby Doc” Duvalier was overthrown in 1986 in a massive popular uprising, but only after the U.S. military whisked him out of the country in possession of millions of dollars from the national treasury. Since then, popular movements in Haiti have fought for increases in the minimum wage, reforestation programs, expanding public services and ending the privatization of the public sector.

This has pitted the people of Haiti against their own insulated ruling elite and U.S. capitalism. Various U.S. administrations–including those of Clinton and George W. Bush, who most recently orchestrated a paramilitary coup in 2004 to oust Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the popular center-left president at the time–have acted as the armed bodyguard for multinational companies and Haiti’s ruling class while they plunder the natural resources of the country and rob the poor and working classes. Whether by direct military invasion (the Marines have been sent to Haiti several times in the last century) or through sanctions and economic destabilization, Haiti is a rich country that has been made poor by U.S. imperialism.

Obama is now continuing in the footsteps of his predecessors by ordering U.S. troops into Haiti to serve as an occupying military while offering Haiti’s current president a pittance of aid and more loans.

Nothing in this world is ever free. As Richard Kim at The Nation recently discovered: “The new loan was made through the IMF’s extended credit facility, to which Haiti already has $165 million in debt. Debt relief activists tell me that these loans came with conditions, including raising prices for electricity, refusing pay increases to all public employees except those making minimum wage, and keeping inflation low. They say that the new loans would impose these same conditions. In other words, in the face of this latest tragedy, the IMF is still using crisis and debt as leverage to compel neoliberal reforms.”

As Americans, we should feel a certain compulsion to point out that U.S. imperialism has plenty of Haitian blood on its hands and will continue to until we do something about it.

A number of demands have been articulated that would be a good step toward achieving peace and justice for Haiti. As Ashley Smith, a writer for socialistworker.org, recently wrote: “First, we must demand that Obama immediately stop the military occupation of Haiti, and instead flood the country with doctors, nurses, food, water and construction machinery. Soldiers with guns will only make the situation worse. Second, the U.S. must also end its enforcement of Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s exile and the ban on his party, Fanmi Lavalas, from participating in elections. Haitians, not the U.S., should have the right to determine their government. Third, we must demand that the U.S., other countries and international financial institutions cancel Haiti’s debt, so that the aid money headed to Haiti will go to food and reconstruction, not debt repayment. And we must agitate for Obama to indefinitely extend Temporary Protected Status to Haitians in the U.S.–and open the borders to any Haitians who do flee the country. Only through agitating for these demands can we stop the U.S. from imposing its Shock Doctrine for Haiti at gunpoint.”

In January, UF’s Office of the Provost awarded the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program, SPOHP, with a $150,000 grant for a three-year research project that involves conducting and transcribing interviews in Alachua County and surrounding areas with black Americans who came of age during legal segregation. Most of the interviews will be conducted by UF students and put into a database accessible to students all over the world.

“There’s a real need to document black history in this part of the country,” said Paul Ortiz, 45, director of SPOHP. “The people who can tell us what life was like back then are rapidly passing away.”

With Florida’s long history of segregation, it is critical to make a subjective record of the time before it is too late, Ortiz said.

“The bottom line is that people who came of age during Brown v. Board are starting to pass away, and only they can tell us what it was like to live back then,” he said. “It is a tremendous civics lesson that we can learn from them.”

The idea of the project came about from a collective need for the material.

“It definitely is not an idea that we came up with ourselves,” Ortiz said. “Teachers call us all the time to demand documents on African-American history.”

Even though there is no shortage of books on black history, there is no written record of people who experienced segregation first-hand. Participants in the program believe that preserving the memories of these individuals would be a good investment for the future needs of scholars, as well as a good wake-up call for those who take their civil rights for granted.

Sherry DuPree, one of the program’s interviewees and current professor at Santa Fe College, described her first voting experience in the days of segregation as a time filled with fear and intimidation.

“We drove our senior citizens to the polls,” DuPree said. “Many were afraid and would not go. They had been told that they would find their children, homes and land destroyed if they wrote their names on the ballot.”

But even long after segregation laws had been lifted, Florida was no easy state for minorities to reside in.

DuPree was the first African-American librarian hired and tenured at UF. She even got the approval vote from the library department staff, yet the university refused to give her this honor.

It’s the personal stories like DuPree’s that the oral history program aims to conserve not only for the benefit of future students, but also for the interviewers themselves.?“Students tell me that by doing these interviews they learn more about African-American history than they have learned in their whole lives from textbooks,” Ortiz said. “Students come back to us three to four years later and tell us that doing the oral histories interviews gave them a greater appreciation for the society that they live in.”? Douglas Malenfant, 25, a UF history senior and transcriber for the program, describes his experiences with SPOHP as “extremely rewarding.”

“Being part of this African-American history project has changed my perception of Gainesville’s importance in the Civil Rights Movement,” he said. “[It] has most significantly changed the way I look at the landscape of Gainesville. It is difficult to imagine that 40 years ago African-Americans in Gainesville were prohibited from patronizing many restaurants, bars and grocery stores, but that is the truth.”

“[SPOHP] offers history majors a rich diversity of testimonies that they can use to draw out the realities of segregation,” Malenfant said. “Political science majors can [also] benefit from contextualizing the importance of civil rights legislation and learn from the community organizers who fought some of this nation’s toughest battles for equality.”

As beneficial as these oral history records may prove to be, getting the information to the people is always a challenge.

“We do the interviews, but we also want to get the material out there,” Ortiz said. “We don’t want it to just sit on the shelf.”

The oral history program is having a series of seminars starting this month to get the word out. The series is themed “The History and Future of Community Organizing in America” and will run from Feb. 17 through April 14.

The seminars should raise awareness of the importance of the program among students, Ortiz said.

“We want to document the black history in Alachua County, and we want to make sure that it is preserved.”

Travis’ response: “He’s referring, of course, to a system of succession that predates the Unite Party, in which students from Greek houses and various campus groups are rewarded based on loyalty, receiving everything from student money for their groups to leadership positions in SG.”

We see this every year – the ‘indie party’ tries to differentiate itself from the ‘established party’ merely for the sake of differentiating itself.

The two parties tend to have similar platforms. That’s not to say there aren’t differences; the establishment party is always “safer.” But the average student, who rarely finds a reason to pay attention, will have a hard time telling them apart. Everyone wants a more sustainable campus. Everyone wants to limit the economic burden on students. Everyone makes vague promises about making UF a better place.

Naturally that state of affairs makes things hard on the opposition. But they tend to get caught up in the politics of it all, and next thing you know, they’re spouting off at the mouth just for the sake of differentiating themselves. Inane arguments and childish stunts, like Niederreiter’s letter, inevitable ensue.

Take the Reitz Union Expansion Fee. It’s a hot issue right and something that very well could bring a record number of students out to the polls. And the truth is, that building is in dire need of repairs. But is charging the students a fee the best way to go about making those repairs?

All you see in The Alligator about the issue is pitting Graduate Assistants United and the Student Alliance against the Unite Party. GAU says underpaid grad assistants can’t afford a fee (they’re most certainly right about that), and the Student Alliance has unquestioningly embraced their position.

Now the two sides are talking past each other. There’s no doubt that the Reitz needs some serious work and that it’s been expanding beyond its capacity for years. There’s also no doubt that graduate assistants need to be paid better. Rather than trying to find an alternative way to secure the repairs, Student Alliance automatically rejects the student fee because it’s something that Unite supports. In the Town Hall Meeting sponsored by the Alligator and SG, Ben Cavataro applauded any criticism of President Jordan Johnson and his plans. Is this really getting us anywhere?

There’s a real possibility here for SG to work together and make the repairs happen in a way that exploits students the least and also makes the Reitz Union a place we can all enjoy. Denying that we need to fix the problem isn’t going to help us. Which party will step up to the plate? I’m of the opinion that if they don’t get over their petty opposition politics, then neither will. But I hope I’m proved wrong.

“The elevation of the family to ideological preeminence guarantees that a capitalist society will reproduce not just children, but heterosexism and homophobia.”

– John D’Emilio, Capitalism and Gay Identity

For the last several months, this sentence has haunted me and kept me awake at night. Every time I hear the word “gay” or “lesbian” in the news, it is followed by some form of the word “equal,” and I can’t help but wonder what that means anymore. It’s the banner of every Rachel Maddow talking point, the pariah of every Bill O’Reilly pundit.

Most people will give a clear, definitive response to what they mean by equality: marriage. Personally, I take a hate-the-sin-love-the-sinner approach to marriage. Activists and lobbyists alike throw their arms up at this injustice, like the worst thing in the world is being denied the right to be a miserable divorcee with the rest of the country. Imagine me, free to be forced to reconcile banking statements, insurance policies, child-rearing practices and geographic locality with the person I thought I loved senior year of college. The American Dream.

The Human Rights Campaign invests billions of dollars for the sake of marriage while transgender teens (a small minority of the overall population) represent some of the highest in homelessness and suicide rates. Equality could start somewhere closer to anti-discrimination, anti-hate speech, domestic violence prevention and health care reform. It could broaden domestic household rights to include any individuals under a roof and provide more monetary autonomy for every kind of monogamous couple. It could fulfill the sexual revolution that the Gay Liberation Front set out to do almost 40 years ago in 1970.

So it would be an understatement to say that a month before the National Equality March on Washington, D.C., I was reluctant. I had tied myself to the irrational idea that I, as a gay man, could go as an observer and “critique” what I saw. I wanted to put my finger to the pulse of this thing, to take it apart and see what makes it tick.

Instead, less than a month away, the opposite happened. This Pandora’s Box, equality, had more going on within it than outside of it. Protesters who had only cared about Proposition 8 began to talk about the endemic homelessness rate among transgender youth. Heterosexual couples began seeking domestic partnership status instead of marriage. In Gainesville, the Pride Community Center wouldn’t throw its support behind the March, and The International Socialist Organization was the only group in Gainesville to provide transportation for interested parties. As socialism is no longer the dirty word Fox News catered it to be, socialists put themselves at the head of a national movement. The Advocate, by no means a left-leaning publication, featured a purple and pink portrait of Obama and asked the question on many queer people’s minds: “Nope?”

So I put my full support into it. I missed classes, asked for donations and handed out fliers. I got a schedule for all the workshops for the weekend. Plane ticket in hand, my obsession doubled. Equality, it seemed, had drawn my attention as well as the nation’s. Equality, it would seem, was in some type of ménage à trois with Liberty and Justice. And this had extended beyond any pornographic desire. I wanted in.

So I decided: to Washington.

Demanding Equality

“We’re not organizing to march; we’re marching to organize!”

– Sherry Wolf, activist

I fly into Dulles instead of Reagan on principle. There’s something about coming to a gay rights march and landing in an institution named solely for the man who killed more gay people with a mere qualification of nonexistence that (because it doesn’t feel right?) doesn’t feel right. Sure, maybe it took an extra two hours to get to my destination 30 minutes before the Metro closed down for the night, but I have principles, damn it.

D.C. is pretty disgusting. Chinatown is all of three blocks and includes a Ruby Tuesday, which, the last time I checked, only specialized in Asian-specific cuisine as a seasonal promotion à la sweet-and-sour Cajun chicken dinner plates. The image of “the man” is pervasive: stopping at street corners on cell phones, scrolling on BlackBerrys in the subway; they can even be spotted on the yet-gentrified blocks of Columbia Heights. Everywhere, the ideal of an overweight white man in a dress shirt is incessant. These are men who buy Bowflexes as living room ornaments and men who haven’t had their pant legs hemmed since the ’70s.

Most of the events start to kickoff on Saturday. The Human Rights Campaign headquarters has a slew of fact sheets for each state and tables for writing letters to your representatives. They have workshops, buttons and sign-making stations for the March on Sunday.

At noon, a small group of us gather at the Taft Memorial, waiting on details via text for a flash mob protest that is supposed to be taking place. “Stonewall 2.0,” they say. We all get notified about a half-hour later telling us to meet at Union Station. In the lobby, it’s starting to fill with people. Another half-hour later and I’m frozen with about a hundred other people, camcorder in hand, trying to record the event for The Fine Print’s web site. We march outside and start yelling chants from generation’s past: “Gay Straight, Black White! Same Struggle, Same Fight!” It seems like the crowd has grown: 100, maybe 200, people, nearly all under 25. It feels good, and as we make our way to the Capitol, tourists look confused. What do we want? Equality! When do we want it? Now!

The Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell protest an hour later isn’t as successful. Forty-five minutes into it and they’re still asking us to text our friends to come. They hand out tattoos straight from the NoH8 campaign that fought the passage of Proposition 8. When I leave, they’re beginning to duct tape mouths. But I’ve got someplace else to be.

I arrive right on time at Busboys and Poets, and there’s a line around the railing outside, circling the building. Inside are Sherry Wolf and Cleve Jones, two of the organizers of the March. They’re giving a talk on LGBTQ Liberation. Jones was responsible for the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt in the ’80s and personally took up the call for the March. Wolf just wrapped up a tour for her new book and to drum up support for the March. I sneak my way in right before they speak. It’s wall-to-wall people inside.

Wolf says the March is about one thing: full equality in all matters governed under civil law in all 50 states. This means adding sexual orientation and queer identity to the 1964 Civil Rights Amendment. She says this concept of pride over protest and lobbying incrementalism over direct action is unacceptable.

She also changes my views on marriage. The majority of the LGBTQ population aren’t the affluent, campy white males we see on television. They’re ordinary, working-class people. The material benefits of marriage are more real to them than my college-educated status will be able to understand. Moreover, most of those economic benefits come from the national level. Even couples in states that allow for gay marriage are denied those rights.

Wolf ties LGBTQ protest to other direct, leftist political actions. She talks about how Harvey Milk was successful in striking beers in gay bars for labor unions and how the Gay Liberation Front, born from Stonewall, was vehemently anti-war.

“I don’t want to see DADT [Don't Ask, Don't Tell] repealed so that our gay brothers and sisters can go on fighting an illegal war,” she says. ”Here is another reality about the U.S. military: it is the largest employer in our country. I want them to be recognized and receive the benefits for their service everyone gets, and then I want to bring all of our brothers and sisters back home!”

It seems like these people care. Like they get it. Like D.C. isn’t just some vacation to them, and it seems as if people might take this stuff back and start organizing. And that’s what Wolf wants, too.

“It’s not a bad start folks, but we have got to walk away from here with a movement. We’re not organizing to march; we’re marching to organize.”

That night, Obama spoke at the HRC, promising to hear our calls for equality if we continue to make them. Our president invoked Stonewall, when transgender, gay and lesbian working-class people, mostly of color, cornered riot-squad officers into a bar, set fire to the bar and continued to riot for the next several days. That night, queer radicals “glamdalized” the HRC headquarters by tagging “Quit Leaving Queers Behind” in pink spray paint on the door and firing off “glitter-bombs.”

Sunday morning, only a few people were wandering McPherson Square, where the March was to begin. But within two hours, curious stragglers had turned into an enmeshed horde armed with signs, screams and a willingness to demonstrate. The parks couldn’t hold crowds, then the streets couldn’t, and people spilled over in every direction.

The International Socialist Organization had a massive contingent group marching, mostly young people. With megaphones and signs to hand out to everyone passing by, they made it clear that, as part of their political belief, they stood for equality for all and saw the marginalization of gay people as a gross inequality.

Signs everywhere referenced Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Employment Non-Discrimination Act and the Defense of Marriage Act. Groups from colleges all across the country, as well as UF, protested that they wouldn’t stand for this any longer. Radical Queers marched against heteronormativity, poverty and capitalism. Even Lady Gaga, as detracting as her and her entourage’s presence may have been, marched.

Past the Washington Monument in the distance, past the White House and those screaming support on the balcony of the Newseum, the crowd spilled into the Capitol lawn for a rally that would last the rest of the day. Jones, two days after his birthday, begged the crowd to please take protest back home with them.

The Politics of Equality

“Perhaps the crowd at the dinner last night was a little more politically aware and had a better sense at what’s at stake and what can be done.”

– HRC President Joe Solmonese, referring to the HRC banquet

Coverage in general was slim. The majority of print media was this: Are the gays mad at Obama? Broadcast tended to say it directly. The Washington Post, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and USA Today all hinted at it. Their scope of issues covered similar ones that were focused on at the March: Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Employment Non-Discrimination Act and the Defense of Marriage Act. Rarely did I hear mention of full-blown, one-measure equality –- like the kind Sherry Wolf alluded to.

CNN did tend to delve deeper. In a five-panel discussion after the HRC banquet, Michelangelo Seniorelli alluded to the fact that the HRC mostly represents white, affluent men. The next day, Joe Solmonese defended the HRC and, in doing so, perhaps suggested that economic privilege is a direct link to incremental, lobbyist approaches.

What still remains unclear is if and how the March on Washington’s aftermath will come to fruition. Will there be a national grassroots movement at all? Will it focus on the high-density urban areas many gay people live in? Will it be for single issues, or will it demand full equality now? Will assimilation versus acceptance, as queer radicals connote, take center stage? Will it incorporate issues such as universal health care and migrant farm labor?

What myopia of these issues was actually covered by the media only scratched the surface. Gay Liberation, to pick up where it left off, is going to require a much more politically astute and active base, and it is going to have to lead the way in activism for many more issues that make up the great “change” our society needs.

Here’s a quick and dirty of what you need to know:

- Flashmob protest for Equality was bad-ass. An intern from The Nation says he’s putting up a video on the Web site. We’ll see when it comes up. I have videos of my own to add once I get it up. And lots of pictures.

- HRC had letters info and supplies for you to write a letter to your representative concerning issues. Corrine Brown, expect a letter.

- The other protest for DADT was a straight-up from the post-8 NoH8 playbook. I left after 45 minutes, and they were still asking people to text and call people to come.

- The Cleve Jones and Sherry Wolf liberation talk wasn’t a talk. It was a call to action! The place was packed, and people were gathered outside just to listen. It was inspirational in the least.

- I’m already late for the HRC picket, and I don’t know if I’ll be able to make it. We’ll see.

March tomorrow!

Gay, Straight, Black White! Same struggle, same fight!

I’m really excited because TFP just had a meeting for the October issue, and I’ll be working on a whole spread covering the March on Washington. Everyone has thrown their two cents into the debate since it was announced this summer.

I’m stoked to be able to go and talk to young people across the country about the future of activism/queer politics. What does grassroots activism mean in an age of endless blogs just talking about issues? Every month I give my $10 to the Human Rights Campaign, but I can’t help but feel like I’m just contributing to a larger problem — lobbying. People rarely think of politics as something they actively participate it.

So what are your opinions of the March? Are you planning on going? And what kind of coverage would you like to see of it, in print and on the Web?