Many left-handed students feel like they are not getting equal rights when it comes to desks at Ohio State.”The large auditoriums are the worst,” said William Kirchner, a left-handed sophomore in international studies. “Especially since I like to sit in the front where there are few, if any, desks for lefties.”The desks for left-handers are usually pushed against the wall, where it is hard to see the chalkboard or projection screen, Kirchner said.Ten percent of the desks in classrooms with fixed seats and built-in writing surfaces are equipped for left-handed students, said Terri Stankiewicz, assistant director of Planning and Project Management for OSU Physical Facilities.This number used by physical facilities may be too low, according to a 1992 survey conducted by Gilbert and Wysocki that placed the national average for left-handed Americans at 11 percent. The average is even higher for young people, falling between 12 and 14 percent.In the recently renovated Hitchcock Hall room 131, exactly 10 percent of its 620 seats are designed for lefties, but one-third of those are pushed against the left side wall and there are none in the first two rows of the lecture hall. The system for placing loose, non-fixed desks is a little different. They are ordered in the same 10 percent quantity, but due to the major overstock of older right-handed desks, broken left-handed desks are not always replaced with left-handed desks, Stankiewicz said.”When I went to school, there were no left-handed desks, so there is a major backlog of right-handed desks that we cannot afford to replace,” Stankiewicz said.This does little to alleviate the problem for southpaw students who have difficulty taking notes or tests in class.”I’ve had to take a lot of tests on right-handed desks. It’s hard, especially when the desks are small, like the ones in Independence Hall,” said lefty Dawn Ravasio, a senior pharmacy major. “I have to lean way over to reach the desk. Then people look at me strange, like I’m trying to cheat off of them.”Ravasio added, “you have to look all over for a place to sit, and then you have no chance of sitting with your friends.”