Ron DeSantis Bans Student Organization on Florida Campuses for Support of Terrorist Group
When does campus activism move from free speech to material support for terrorism?
One could fairly easily — and noncontroversially — posit that the line gets drawn whenever the activists specifically say they’re joining with the terrorists, and not just in solidarity. If they’ve issued a so-called toolkit to get involved in the terror group’s activities, that should be another big, honking red flag.
And yet, we’re debating the state of Florida’s decision to shut down campus-based Students for Justice in Palestine organizations after they did, well, exactly that.
On Tuesday, University System of Florida Chancellor Ray Rodrigues, in consultation with Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, issued a memorandum deactivating SJP groups in “our State University System and the Florida College System.”
Cue the outcry over free speech, despite the group’s blatant terrorist sympathies.
“During a holy Jewish holiday, the recognized terrorist organization, Hamas, launched an unprovoked attack on Israel — among those killed were babies, women, and elderly,” Rodrigues wrote in the memorandum. “To date, approximately 1,400 Israelis have been killed, including 31 American citizens. Governor DeSantis, our State University System and the Florida College System have condemned these attacks.”
As Rodrigues noted, the name of the attack, as given by Hamas, is “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.” In response to the attack, the national chapter of the SJP issued a “toolkit” identifying members of the organization as “the resistance” and making it clear that “Palestinian students in exile are PART of this movement, not in solidarity with this movement.”
Furthermore, as The Associated Press noted, the group has long encouraged the tacitly anti-Semitic BDS movement, which aims to treat Israel as an “apartheid state” and boycott, divest from and sanction it the same way the world did with apartheid South Africa.
“Based on the National SJP’s support of terrorism, in consultation with Governor DeSantis, the student chapters must be deactivated,” Rodrigues wrote.
Granted, this raises free speech concerns, given that these chapters are at state-funded schools and have their First Amendment free-speech rights.
However, as Rodrigues pointed out, Florida makes it a felony to “knowingly provide material support … to a designated foreign terrorist organization.”
NEW: Governor DeSantis just ordered the University of Florida and the University of South Florida to deactivate their “Students for Justice in Palestine” groups for violating Florida’s laws against antisemitism. pic.twitter.com/Y3B6hLnRJZ
— Mary Margaret Olohan (@MaryMargOlohan) October 24, 2023
Hamas is, of course, an internationally recognized terrorist organization that also happens to technically control the Gaza Strip’s political power thanks to a one-man-one-vote-one-time legislative election in 2006. That doesn’t remove the terrorist element from the group’s makeup, nor does it make “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood” anything more than a barbaric act of terrorism under international law.
But, yet again, DeSantis is cracking down on free speech, to hear SJP-friendly groups tell it.
“Florida, particularly under the leadership of Governor Ron DeSantis, has been actively undermining education, freedom of speech and social justice movements, including by banning anti-racist courses and trying to criminalize protests,” Palestine Legal, a group that supports pro-Palestinian causes, said in a Wednesday statement.
“It is not surprising that this egregious move to silence the student movement for Palestinian rights is being pursued under DeSantis,” the group said.
Same thing with free speech organizations, too: “If it goes unchallenged, no one’s political beliefs will be safe from government suppression,” the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression said in a statement, adding the government doesn’t have the power to ban chapters of the SJP even if the organization is breaking the law.
Now, to be clear, the State University System of Florida said in its letter that banned student chapters “may form another organization that complies with Florida state statutes and university policies.” Which wouldn’t involve lending their support to a terrorist organization, of course, or declaring that they were “PART of this” terrorist attack on the state of Israel.
And the media, ever looking to keep the narrative going, tied this back in with the false narratives that Florida teaches students that slavery is good and that diversity is bad: “Under DeSantis, Florida has limited how race can be discussed in schools, prohibited state universities from spending money on diversity, equality and inclusion programs and taken other actions that critics say limit free speech on campus,” the AP claimed.
Look, if you want to buy into the silly race canard or beat the dead DEI horse again, fine. However, to equate professed material support for the Hamas effort with controversial curriculum items is beyond the pale.
If these student organizations wish to continue supporting the Hamas cause with their speech, they’re more than able to do so — as Rodrigues made clear.
The reason they’ve been shut down is because they’re part of a national organization that doesn’t just lend its verbal and political support to Hamas’ terror attacks but expressly declares itself a part of those attacks and gives members the tools it feels they need to assist.
The question shouldn’t be whether this is a free-speech crackdown on DeSantis’ part, but whether other governors have the good sense to follow his lead — no matter what legal battle might ensue.
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