The Fight for Plan B at Rollins College: Forming Coalitions, Growing Femme Membership, and Winning Material Change 

Rollins College YDSA won their campaign for free and reduced-cost Plan B access on campus, demonstrating the strength of coalition-based campaigns that retain socialist values and the importance of developing femme leadership and membership. 

After two months of petitioning, tabling, and meeting with administration, Rollins College YDSA has secured free and reduced-cost Plan B Emergency Contraceptive on our campus. Plan B will now be available in the Wellness Center for free via appointment during business hours and sold for $5 in the campus convenience store. The convenience store option will be available for mobile orders and pickup in discreet packaging so students feel safe and confident acquiring Plan B. Additionally, education on Plan B and emergency contraceptives will become part of the Rollins College orientation process alongside sexual wellness and healthy relationship workshops. 

This win is a major material gain for students who previously had to pay $50 at a pharmacy or rely on services such as DoorDash, incurring additional fees, because many students do not have access to a car to travel to a pharmacy. Our YDSA chapter approached this campaign strategically to directly benefit students, to engage in coalitions to expand the reach of the campaign, and to develop femme students into femme leaders. In doing so, this campaign has both created real material change for the student body and strengthened the chapter. 

Forming coalitions 

Rollins College YDSA received broad support from campus organizations who circulated our petition, such as our feminist organization Voices, our queer student group Spectrum, Greek Life, Theatre, Student Media, and Student Government. YDSA expanded our reach across campus by asking these other student groups to share and support our campaign and demands, ensuring that our vision for a better campus could come to fruition. While building these cross-organizational relationships and working with a coalition, we never compromised the vision for the campaign or weakened any of our demands to appeal to another student group. 

Our Student Government Association (SGA) wanted to take the lead on this project and create a legislative solution. However, there was a sentiment within SGA that we could not ask the school to fund the program out of its own pocket. Because of this perceived financial barrier, SGA believed the current grant-funded system of appointment-only Plan B  — at a clinic with limited hours and notoriously difficult-to-secure appointments — was the most the school could provide and was looking to pivot their campaign to weaker demands around general sexual health. YDSA rejected this shift and continued with our demands separately from SGA as the continuation of the coalition partnership threatened the health of the campaign. If we had taken a backseat as a coalition member rather than a campaign leader, we would not have succeeded in creating material change for students. Building a coalition does not mean compromising demands to appeal to another organization. The strength of our campaign came from sticking to our vision.

Despite SGA concerns, Rollins College YDSA put our campaign and vision first, and presented our petition and survey on current Plan B availability to the Dean of Students. Our petition collected data on the current system Rollins had for Plan B. It asked how many students were aware of the current system and if students were confident they could access Plan B from the Wellness Center within the 72-hour window of effectivity. We found that 83.2% of respondents from our student body were unaware that Plan B was available in the Wellness Center, and 52.6% were less than somewhat confident in their ability to make a timely appointment. This data demonstrated that the current system was ineffective and strengthened our argument for expanding Plan B access on campus. 

Growing Femme Leadership

Rollins College YDSA is a femme-led chapter at a college with a predominantly femme-identifying student body (58.8%). However, femme leadership is not a given in a predominantly femme institution. When I joined the steering committee, I was the only femme member and I was treated as a secretary and assistant to our masc leaders. This was incredibly frustrating. When a speech I prepared for a union rally was stolen by a masc member of the SC and I was not given the opportunity to speak to the crowd on a campaign I had poured countless hours into, I nearly quit organizing. At the time, another femme member was interested in running for SC, but was discouraged by her interactions with a masc member of the SC. Ultimately, she distanced herself from the chapter as a result of sexism and unwanted advances. Even in an institution with a nearly 60% femme student body, sexism was rampant in our chapter. Sexism is a major issue in leftist spaces and a reason why many femme-organizers are frustrated and feel the need to disengage with organizing in an environment that minimizes them. 

Our chapter began to grow its femme membership when we started collecting petitions to get abortion access on the ballot for the 2024 Florida State Elections. This growth continued through the Amendment 4 door-knocking campaign with Orlando DSA, where half the participants at some sessions were femme Rollins students. During the Plan B campaign, we collaborated with the feminist group Voices in their Take Back the Night march which both raised the profile of the campaign and demonstrated our commitment to femme issues. Additionally, through our direct engagement with sororities, we were able to engage the femme population on our campus and bring more femme students into the chapter. Sexism is not merely a cultural issue in the sense that it does not have a cultural solution; it is an organizational and structural problem. We cannot foster a culture of equality by simply discussing it or creating identity spaces. Instead, we must organize around issues that directly affect a community and develop members of that community into organizers and leaders. 

I strongly urge chapters to engage in reproductive justice work to grow femme membership and develop femme leaders. This is especially important in a post-Roe United States where pregnant people are dying and children are being forced to carry pregnancies resulting from sexual abuse because their rights to bodily autonomy have been stripped away in the rise of fascism. Reproductive justice is not a culture war issue or a distraction that keeps us from engaging in real socialist politics. Reproductive justice is the most pressing issue for countless working-class people for whom an unwanted pregnancy and lack of access to adequate reproductive healthcare means economic instability, unemployment, medical debt, poverty, homelessness, and death. 

Now more than ever, access to free and low-cost contraceptives is a deeply felt and pressing issue for Florida students. The state of Florida currently has a ban on abortions after six weeks following the failure of Amendment 4 in the 2024 elections — despite the majority of Floridians voting to uphold abortion access. As Rollins College YDSA secures this win for our campus community, we understand that this is just the beginning. A campaign for free Plan B awakens the consciousness of the politically disengaged. It animates them toward achieving this material change and the revolutionary horizons past this reform of bodily autonomy and free healthcare. We hope in the future to push for access to Plan C abortion pills mifepristone and misoprostol for our students and the lifting of restrictions on abortion in our state as well as for other chapters to take on similar campaigns. A better world is possible — and today, we are one step closer.