By Anastasia Bower
During the 1960s and early 1970s, students at the University of Florida produced a number of underground and alternative newspapers and magazines. At one time The Orange Peel was ranked the number one college humor magazine in the country. Don Addis, whose cartoons often graced the cover, went on to a forty year career as an editorial cartoonist at the St. Petersburg Times. The Orange Peel was considered so racy that the university decided to take control of it in order to produce a more censured version. When the cleaned up version started publication as the New Orange Peel, students responded by releasing a magazine similar to the original, which they called the Old Orange Peel.
Another student magazine, The Charlatan, appeared in the 1960s. It featured topless women and caused an uproar when it ran a nude centerfold of UF co-ed Pamme Brewer. The Dean of Women Students tried to expel Brewer for posing in the nude.
The main student newspaper at UF was the Alligator — but it was subject to university censorship, a constant point of controversy between UF administrators and student editors. A host of alternative newspapers, including The Eye, The Hogtown Orifice, The Hogtown Press, The University Report, and The Crocodile, focused on the political issues of the day. The Eye and The Hogtown Orifice, both members of the Liberation News Service, covered protests, demonstrations, and speeches by activists. The University Report, a weekly that was openly critical of university policies, became a rival to the Alligator for a while and supported itself with advertising. The Crocodile also sprang up in response to administrative interference with the Alligator. Ultimately, though, it was the Alligator that endured. After a long struggle for editorial freedom, it became an independent student newspaper in 1972.
