Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s administration has ordered state universities to ban a pro-Palestinian student organization, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). The state has denounced SJP as supporting a “terrorist organization” after the massacre of Israelis by Hamas. I have previously written how Hamas is morally and legally a terrorist organization. However, this move would, in my view, violate the First Amendment and chill the exercise of free speech in higher education.
State university system Chancellor Ray Rodrigues wrote to university presidents Tuesday directing them to disband chapters of SJP. He quoted the national group’s declaration that “Palestinian students in exile are PART of this movement, not in solidarity with this movement.”
That is a rather thin rationale for declaring that the student groups are now aiders and abetters of terrorism. Nevertheless, Rodrigues declared “it is a felony under Florida law to ‘knowingly provide material support … to a designated foreign terrorist organization.’”
Students for Justice in Palestine has been on U.S. campuses for decades with more than 200 chapters across the United States. The Supreme Court has repeatedly struck down such content-based bans and has been particularly protective of free speech in higher education. In 1943, in the midst of World War II, Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson wrote schools “educating the young for citizenship is reason for scrupulous protection of Constitutional freedoms of the individual, if we are not to strangle the free mind at its source and teach youth to discount important principles of our government as mere platitudes.”
The Supreme Court has protected speech that is vile and prejudicial. That included the racist and anti-Semitic speech of a Catholic priest in Terminiello v. City of Chicago, 337 U.S. 1 (1949). In that case, Justice William O. Douglas wrote:
The right to speak freely and to promote diversity of ideas and programs is therefore one of the chief distinctions that sets us apart from totalitarian regimes.
Accordingly a function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve its high purpose when it induces a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stirs people to anger. Speech is often provocative and challenging. It may strike at prejudices and preconceptions and have profound unsettling effects as it presses for acceptance of an idea. That is why freedom of speech, though not absolute… is nevertheless protected against censorship or punishment, unless shown likely to produce a clear and present danger of a serious substantive evil that rises far above public inconvenience, annoyance, or unrest. …There is no room under our Constitution for a more restrictive view. For the alternative would lead to standardization of ideas either by legislatures, courts, or dominant political or community groups.
I strongly disagree with many of the protests being held on campuses, including a deeply disturbing incident at George Washington University this week praising “the martyrs” in the Hamas attack. Our Jewish students need to feel safe on our campuses — a concern magnified this week by the image of Jewish students locked in a library for their own protection in New York.
However, the solution is not the denial of free speech on our campuses. Higher education demands a protective space for a diversity of viewpoints. The solution to bad speech remains better speech, not censorship or criminalization of speech.
I’m sure that the ACLU or the Southern Poverty Law Center will challenge this shortly.
As I understand it, for the most part they are supporting Hamas, not Palestine. That’s the equivalent of supporting Al-Qaida or the Taliban, not Afghanistan. Words and intent do matter. Also, more importantly: what does any of this have to do with education? How is it fair to other students that are paying or went into debt to be there? It could be viewed as being about student behavior rather than speech, and I missed when students were granted the power to usurp administration or law to have violent temper tantrums rather than conversations.
“As I understand it, for the most part they are supporting Hamas, not Palestine.”
As you ‘want’ to understand it. Not truly understand it. That’s the problem. They are supporting Palestinians not Hamas. Conservatives are deliberately conflating HAMAS with Palestinians as the same thing so there’s an excuse to denigrate all of them. It’s no different than what was done to Jews. How ironic.
It is important to know who the stupid people are, best to let them stand up, parade around, loudly and stupidly identifying themselves.
No, they are not supporting Palestine, if they were they would have protested before October 7th. They are supporting hamas.
Yeah, let’s go ahead and allow these hamas terrorists free access to our electronic and print media. They can send out mailers begging for financial contributions too. Maybe have a, “Solidarity Parade.” Congress can designate October 7 as, “Hamas Memorial Day,” to honor those brave hamas fighters who were killed in Israel. I think you have your head twisted on backward. We’re in a WAR. Hamas is the ENEMY of western civilization. Hamas wants to kill you, too. Pull your head out!
Agreed, Turley. In a situation where Hamas committed a massacre and Israel seems to be responding with a holocaust, speech around the issue is definitely charged. The first ammendment is key in piecing together how to move forward….
I’m encouraged you’re turning some attention on to the outright attacks on the 1st ammendment Florida has been undertaking for months now under DeSantis. Book bans. Overt silencing of criticism. Time to put the lens on it.
Only progressively stupid people think FL is banning books. Does any “library” carry every book? By your logic every state bans books. If people want the porn books in FL they can easily buy from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or numerous other bookstores.
The key to rising above progressive ignorance is learning vocabulary.
Since 2021 over 1200 books have been banned in Florida. Your denial has a serious numbers problem.
Hey groomer, you have a serious context problem. Why were the books banned? From where are the books banned? Who banned the books? Are all of the so called “banned books” unavailable by law to the general population?
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2022/08/25/fact-check-fake-list-banned-florida-books-circulates-widely-online/7876468001/
What would you call this list then? It comes directly from FL’s Department of Education: https://www.fldoe.org/core/fileparse.php/5574/urlt/2223ObjectionList.pdf.
Let’s take one example of a removed book: “And Tango Makes Three” in Escambia County. This is a children’s book about a family of penguins. It was removed presumably because two male penguins were raising a young penguin. This is absolutely a book ban in Escambia County (Pensacola area) school libraries.
look of the definition of ban. look up the definition the stocked or held.
The libraries are stocking or holding the books.
Floridians are free to buy if they want.
What library has every book? none
By your logic every state bans books
Do not be progressively stupid, learn vocabulary.
You want to talk about “VOCABULARY.” What does “ban” mean?
====> officially or legally prohibit.
Does officially holding books and preventing access to those books meet that definition. Yes, unquestionably. There is no requirement in the English language definition of “ban” that they must be burned, destroyed, or transported off the premises. Can you offer me ANY official English dictionary that adds that requirement to the meaning of “ban”?
PLEASE, don’t start about learning vocabulary.
They can not use state funds to buy, stock, and manage loans of the books .That is not banning.
Now you are less progressively stupid
What books exactly have been banned for sale in Florida?
round them up and jail them for a HATE CRIME…whatever that is. To me Hate Crime designation is completely unconstitutional. Harassment, threats…those are crimes…no matter WHO YOU ARE…is an ACTUAL crime
You could call the Declaration of Independence a “hate crime.” It says very nasty things about George III.
It is a fine point but it may mean the difference between a court fight and a legitimate defense of the Florida Action. I agree that if the students say that they are part of Hamas, a state sponsor of terrorists and designated as a terrorist group by the US government, and are also trying to solicit and otherwise raise funds for the these terrorist actions, then they should be banned. However if they are only protesting and arguing against US policy then they should be allowed to speak.
I seem to remember that the IRA (Irish Republican Army) also go into some trouble in the distant past for trying to raise funds in the US for their terrorist wing. Some politicians seemed more than eager to allow the IRA to continue for many years doing exactly this, even as our British ally tried to get the US to stop allowing it. Much of that eagerness to continue allowing fund seeking in the US WAS SUPPORTED BY Democrats with strong family ties to Ireland. A stain on our ties with the UK.
I have strong family ties to the Republic of Ireland but never could stomach their terrorist wing or their political wing.
Well perhaps the “elite” universities could offer the Jewish students the attic or a space between the walls so that they can hide from the participants of the “mostly peaceful” and respectful (top down) protests.
Justice in Palestine (SJP) should be banned much like the KKK and White Student Unions were rightly banned at universities.
‘White student union’ Facebook pages surface at universities in Florida, elsewhere
Nov 25, 2015
https://www.tampabay.com/news/education/college/white-student-union-facebook-pages-surface-at-universities-in-florida/2255318/
Adviser Quits Post With U of Florida White-Student Union in Protest of Group’s Contacts With Former KKK Official
JULY 25, 1990
https://www.chronicle.com/article/adviser-quits-post-with-u-of-florida-white-student-union-in-protest-of-groups-contacts-with-former-kkk-official/
Can someone form a Students for White Supremacy? No, they can’t because white supremacists have been labeled a terrorist group. Well then why can you support Hamas, a named terrorist group?
Can you support a group called Students for Bombing Abortion Centers? No, of course not because it is a threat and threats aren’t supposed to be allowed. But supporting Hamas, a group who promises to kill Jews and in fact has killed Jews as recently as this month, has a support group on campus???
The film that Israel has, filmed by the moronic terrorists btw, should be mandated viewing on all campuses. Watch the horrors, watch the atrocities, watch the suffering and then tell us who you support. It is like when the allies made a German town sit through a film of one of the death camps and the citizens were shocked, crying and disgusted with their own society. Well because of what the Germans did we had to kill millions of them to uproot and remove the Nazis and guess what..Israel, with our help, will have to kill many Gazans due to their support of the monsters that committed the atrocities, cheered women being paraded through their towns and chant death to Jews. They will now pay the price and that is just a fact of life.
The Japanese raped millions, killed millions and supported their racist, aggressive militaristic government and guess what…they had to eat two atomic bombs. We wanted to save hundreds of thousands of American soldiers, marines and seamen and so we killed hundreds of thousands of Japanese citizens…and that is what Israel will now have to do.
I attended the University of Florida in the 1990s when they banned men from attending the university chapter of National Organization of Women. UF is the darling of the State University System (SUS) and gets more state funding than any other state university in FL. That UF’s new university president, former Senator Ben Sasse, and Gov DeSantis are pushing UF and the SUS in the opposite direction of Left, are refreshing and long overdue. The enrolled and future students will likely be gainfully employed upon graduating because their academic degrees will be marketable and have utility, unlike the past 30 years.
Something about standards horrifies the Left. The Left are all about caving to destructive appetites which explains America’s culture rot today. See St Augustine of Hippo’s magnum opus, City of God, where he details the collapse of the Roman Empire due to a culture of immorality.
The French philosopher Voltaire is credited by some to say, “I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write.”
Though historians disagree on the attribution of the quote, the sentiment captures the American history of millions of lives lost to defend our liberties, including free speech.
We must defend the rights of all to free expression, else we risk it all. However, axiomatic in this attitude is the RESPONSIBILITY by those of differing opinions to speak up and offer sound reasoning as to why one would disagree.
In this case, it seems incumbent upon the educational institutions to welcome such debate in proper educational settings whereby all views are explored. Unfortunately, in the process of canceling conservative voices on campuses, it seems the administration and students bodies are being hoisted onto petards of their own making.
And in Gov DeSantis , we have a politician, it seems, in the mold of GW Bush, “you’re either for us (this government and all we’re doing in your name) or against us,” therefore we’ll silence you. Haven’t we just begun to emerge from the Biden/Graham doctrine of, “You’re either you’re for unlimited funding for Ukraine or you’re a Putin stooge?”
I have whiplash!
Has the manipulation of the political class and the complicit media ever been so nakedly apparent?
Republicans and Democrats alike are alarmed at the idea Americans might actually be capable of a deeper, more nuanced understanding of issues, the evidence for which was in the recent Speaker’s race. It reportedly generated the largest call volume to the House of Representatives in recent memory.
That’s the result of truly free speech platforms- X, Substack, Rumble, Gettr among them.
The lesson here is more speech overcomes bad speech. More protests which are free and peaceful overcome those which turn violent and destructive.
Trust the collective wisdom of millions of Americans to compete freely in the marketplace of ideas. Punish actions, not words.
DeSantis is wrong. The Universities silencing Conservative speech and gatherings are also wrong. May they all see the error and course correct immediately.
And in Gov DeSantis , we have a politician, it seems, in the mold of GW Bush….That’s the result of truly free speech platforms- X, Substack, Rumble, Gettr among them.
LMAO
Whiplash isnt your problem, but more likely dementia, cognitive impairment and / or trolling for attention.
Feel free to accuse me of having dementia like you did Granny62, but I think she makes a lot more sense than you do. What exactly is your point? Is it that the rise of DeSantis is due to free speech platforms, and since DeSantis is bad, so is free speech? Please try to explain in terms that we less intelligent beings might understand. The only thing your post conveys is anger, not reason.
troll alert, different sockpuppet, same shtick
Here is a quote from the Muslim Brotherhood which is considered a terrorist organization in many Middle Eastern countries.
“The process of settlement is a ‘Civilization-Jihadist Process’ with all the word means. The Ikhwan [Muslim Brotherhood] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”
Many of these organizations are linked together and to the Muslim Brotherhood. They seem peaceful by design but support terrorism abroad and now in this country. Check out Sami al Arian who was at UF
Many Middle Eastern countries already consider the Muslim Brotherhood to be a terrorist organization. It should officially be designated as a terrorist organization in this country as well.
The PDF for these documents presented in court is at:
https://centerforsecuritypolicy.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/CSP-Explanatory-Memorandum.pdf
I heard Alan Dershowitz say they aren’t Pro-Palestinian they are Pro-Hamas demonstrators. We are told constantly that words matter. This needs to be repeated over and over. Hamas wants the genocide of Jews. It is that simple. Free Speech ends with threats, and these Jewish students should feel threatened—they are being threatened!
Sounds like you are an advocate of safe spaces on campus?
Yes, you need a safe place when people want to physically harm you…not when you are reading To Kill a Mockingbird. Sadly you can’t see the difference.
Which member of this group wants to physically harm a student on campus? I missed that news report?
If you are going to make sensationalist claims, then please back it up. Otherwise, you sound like a liberal student organization that feels threatened by a statue of Woodrow Wilson.
If folks bothered to read the Chancellor’s order, they would have seen the disbandment of these organizations on Florida Operated campuses is directly related to their attempts to obtain material funding for Hamas and Hezbola. It has very little to do with the exercise of Free Speech as defined by the Constitution.
Where does it say there have been “attempts to obtain material funding” in the Chancellor’s Memo?
Here is a link to it: https://www.thefire.org/sites/default/files/2023/10/Letter%20from%20the%20State%20University%20System%20of%20Florida%20FROM-%20Chancellor%20Ray%20Rodrigues%20on%20the%20deactivation%20of%20Students%20for%20Justice%20in%20Palestine%2C%20October%2024%2C%202023.pdf
It simply references a line in the organization’s “toolkit”, which states that these groups are a “PART of this movement.” Here is the toolkit: https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/10/DAY-OF-RESISTANCE-TOOLKIT.pdf
Nowhere in either the Memo or the Toolkit is there any reference to material (financial or otherwise) support for a terrorist organization.
The Memo implies a connection by referencing a Florida law making it a felony to provide material support for a terrorist organization, but it offers no evidence of any such support. The Memo states that the organization has “affirmatively identified it is part of the Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.” That does not mean they have provided material funding. It just means they politically support their cause. That is speech, not “attempts to obtain material funding.”
Please do not spew misinformation to readers of this blog.
The key to this situation appears to lie in one word: “part”. As in “Palestinian students in exile are PART of this movement, not in solidarity with this movement.”
Hamas has been declared a terrorist group. If one claims to be ‘part’ of a terrorist group, one has moved on from the question of freedom of speech and thus potentially suffers the same fate of the terrorist group itself. Such a distinction would be similar to the situation of Rep. Rashida Tlaib in that she appears to support Hamas but does not claim to be part of Hamas.
The simplest thing for the Students for Justice in Palestine to do is correct their statement to make it abundantly clear that they are not part of ANY defined terrorist group. Failure to correct and clarify their position would itself be very revealing.
They have made that statement. It won’t matter. Those opposed to the group WANT them to be part of HAMAS so they have the excuse to ban and silence them.
People like you fight to prevent designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization despite the proof.
You have become a joke to all thinking people..
I’m assuming the FBI has thousands of infomants in all these Jewish hate groups.
Investigating parents going to schoolboard meetings and calling them extremist, is just on signal the Feds have lost the mission focus
Conservative groups are denied charters at colleges all across the nation. This is not new ground…the only difference is who’s ox is being gored.
All the more reason that the principle involved must be observed. However, I presume the key difference is that those “Conservative groups” do not claim to be part of defined terrorist organizations.
Ex Dem
Conservatives have rolled over and refused to engage using the same rules the left uses all the time. Alinsky rules should always apply. the Left must be forced to live under the rules they follow.
Name these conservatives groups that have been denied charters.
SJP is an affiliate of the terror promoting Nazi admiring Supremacist Muslim Brotherhood. It was created as a cover to legitimize their bigotry on campus, which it’s done well, promoting itself not as the Supremacists they are but as oppressed under Marxism’s narrow viewed oppressor/oppressed ideology. This false guise is how they suck in White liberals & BLM type groups, and use their ‘oppressed’ status to shut down opposing views on campuses.
What do you mean by “affiliate”? A legal affiliate? If so, do you have their organizational documents to confirm?
If not, what do you mean by that? If you just mean that it is an organization that supports (with their speech) a cause, then censorship is not the appropriate response.
^^^Pedantry alert ^^^
Why? This is not trivial point. This is the entire point. If the reason to curtail free speech is due to an organization’s alleged crossing the line from an speech-based advocacy organization to an actual arm of a terrorist organization, then it is important to know when and where that line was crossed.
I have seen nothing to suggest that there is an actual legal or financial connection between these groups and Hamas. DeSantis is relying on speech from the National Students for Justice in Palestine that says “Palestinian students in exile are PART of this movement, not in solidarity with this movement.” Did you read the actual “toolkit”? Here it is: https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/10/DAY-OF-RESISTANCE-TOOLKIT.pdf
The toolkit is simply a call for student groups to protest (aka speech). It isn’t asking for money or anything other than speech.
Please read the flyer. I will ask the question again: How does this “toolkit” – the expressed reason for banning the groups – indicate that these student groups are an “AFFILIATE” of Hamas?
“I have seen nothing to suggest that there is an actual legal or financial connection between these groups and Hamas.”
That is because you are intentionally blind. The linkage for all the Muslim Brotherhood groups exists and was spelled out years ago. Our government should designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization along with all its affiliates.
That is because you are intentionally blind.
SM, keep in mind this is the same individual defending the Biden Crime Family because he cannot see the financial connections to Joe Biden. His willful ignorance is purely ideological and certainly not humanitarian. When a pro-Palestinian group supports “justice” in Palestine, they are tacitly supporting those in authority to provide it. That would be Hamas, directly aided and abetted by Iran. And it has been well-documented, justice defined by Hamas and Iran, is the total destruction of the state of Israel and annihilation of Jews where ever they are to be found. This is not some just cause to be free of oppression and exist as an independent nation-state alongside Israel. If that were the case, they would be appealing to the world to help the Palestinian people get rid of Hamas.
Again “support” of Palestine is only a problem if they are financial tied to Hamas, Islamic Jihad or another terrorist organization.
Censoring speech in support of Palestine is not and should not be legal in the USA. I do not subscribe to totalitarian Groupthink to use a refrain commonly invoked by the anti-woke Right.
Presently no one is calling for censoring Palestinian speech. The call is to censor terrorist speech.
You hide behind an anonymous name so at one time you can support terrorism and then act as a free speech advocate.
You are not to be trusted.
” This is not some just cause to be free of oppression and exist as an independent nation-state alongside Israel”
Thanks Olly.
Gaza is an independent entity. The reason there was no land for peace compromise earlier was because they did not want an agreement. They wanted Israel and all the Jews dead.
Do you have any evidence financially linking a student group to Hamas (or the Muslim Brotherhood for that matter, which has been a distinct organization since the late ’80s)?
And if that did exist, why would DeSantis rely on the toolkit rather than presenting that evidence to justify his actions?
This is not intentional blindness. Au contraire, it is simply reality.
“However, the solution is not the denial of free speech on our campuses. Higher education demands a protective space for a diversity of viewpoints. The solution to bad speech remains better speech, not censorship or criminalization of speech.”
– how about:
– “Students For Ted Bundy”?
– “Students For Child Rape”?
– any limitations?
How about Students for Detransitioning? How about Students against Groomers? How about Students Against Pronouns?
HullBobby,
If I were a student, I would join Students Against Groomers and Students Against Pronouns. I would also form Students Against Sex Trafficking Children.
Judge, we are at war now, so let’s let the men and women of “The United States of America” Maga if you wish, take over and repair what your party of racists and anti-white whites destroyed
hamas is a terrorist group. our government told us that it is a terrorist group. they told us that terrorist are bad. they told us to believe them when they said they hate us and will kill us with no provocation. our government has one real job, protection.
im not sure we have laws that say terrorist are under any protections.
the other thing, is it protection of speech when it is a threat? they chant threats to US citizens. That is certainly not protected! cant yell fire, remember. it is not absolute, any speech. speech that causes riots and violence is not protected. it goes past speech when people get locked in libraries, or student rooms. it is not free speech to terrorize people.
i personally think that if our government said Hamas is a Terrorist group, that relieves any concern for their right to terrorize. They do not have any rights to terrorize, and speech is not excluded from terrorizing people.
just remember, your government labeled them terrorist.