A pro-Palestinian student group in Florida is suing the state’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, and the university system for trying to “deactivate” it in a manner that violates the students’ free speech rights.
The University of Florida chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (UF SJP) filed the suit on Thursday in a federal court in Gainesville. It calls on the court to block what amounts to one of the first attempts in the US to silence a pro-Palestinian student group amid the roiling fallout of the Israel-Hamas war on American campuses.
Last month the chancellor of Florida’s university system, Raymond Rodrigues, issued a “deactivation order” targeted at UF SJP. The order, which Rodrigues said had been framed “in consultation with DeSantis”, instructed all University of Florida personnel to strip the student group of official recognition.
Rodrigues based his decision on the actions of the national entity of SJP, which he accused of engaging in “support of terrorism”. The Florida chapter insists that it has had nothing to do with the national body and its controversial statements.
In the lawsuit, UF SJP argues that it is fully autonomous and has no financial or other ties with the national body. The Florida chapter was founded in 2009 as a “human rights advocacy organization” with the mission of finding “a just and reasonable solution to the Palestine-Israel conflict”.
A spokesperson for UF SJP said that the aim of the lawsuit was to counter any official attempt to silence them or “others like us. As students on a public college campus we have every right to engage in human rights advocacy and promote public awareness and activism for a just and reasonable solution to the Palestine-Israel conflict.”
Since the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October in which more than 1,200 people were killed, and the ensuing Israeli military operation inside Gaza that has so far killed more than 11,200 Palestinians, the US has seen countless rallies and demonstrations on both sides of the febrile debate. University campuses have often been a focal point.
Earlier this month Columbia University in New York suspended until the end of term its branch of SJP as well as Jewish Voice for Peace. Columbia authorities said the groups had staged unauthorised events that included “threatening rhetoric and intimidation”.
George Washington University in Washington DC has also suspended a campus chapter of SJP after it projected slogans on the wall of a library. One said: “Glory to our martyrs.”
The furor over free speech on campuses has even been injected into the 2024 presidential race. DeSantis bragged about the UF SJP clampdown at last week’s Republican presidential debate in Miami, saying: “We deactivated them. We’re not gonna use tax dollars to fund jihad.”
The dispute in Florida began on 24 October when Rodrigues sent his “deactivation order” to the leaders of all public colleges in Florida. He accused the national entity of SJP of supporting terrorism because of its response to the 7 October Hamas attack.
He pointed to a “Day of Resistance toolkit” that the national SJP group had released and comments made by the group that praised the attack as “a historic win for the Palestinian resistance”. The toolkit included a separate statement that “Palestinian students in exile are PART of this movement, not in solidarity with this movement”.
Rodrigues argued that by producing the toolkit, the national SJP group had provided material support to a “designated foreign terrorist organization” – a felony under Florida law.
But in its lawsuit, UF SJP insists that it is being unfairly tarnished by the actions of the national group. It was not involved in or consulted about the toolkit, the complaint says.
By contrast, the local chapter’s response to the Hamas attack was to “mourn the loss of innocent Palestinian and Israeli civilian life”.
UF SJP is represented in its legal action by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) , the ACLU of Florida and Palestine Legal. The suit cites two US supreme court rulings as grounds for opposing the deactivation order.
The 1972 ruling Healy v James affirmed students’ first amendment rights to speak out on matters of public concern, free from censorship. That opinion specifically stated that a college could not withhold recognition from a local chapter of the Students for a Democratic Society because of its relationship with its national sister organization – a direct mirror image of the predicament in which UF SJP now finds itself.
The second supreme court precedent, Holder v Humanitarian Law Project, found that independent advocacy is protected as free speech and cannot be criminalized. The felony of providing material support to terrorist groups only applies when there was “advocacy performed in coordination with, or at the direction of, a foreign terrorist organization”.
Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU’s national security project, said: “There should be no question that independent political advocacy – no matter its viewpoint – is fully constitutionally protected.” She hoped that the legal challenge would “send a strong message that censorship in our schools is unconstitutional”.
Earlier this month the ACLU sent an open letter to the leaders of 650 colleges and universities urging them to reject calls to investigate, disband or penalize pro-Palestinian student groups for exercising free speech. Though the ACLU lamented the rise in documented threats on campuses against Jewish, Palestinian, Muslim and other students, it implored leaders not to return to the “experience of our country’s universities during the McCarthy era”.
The letter was written in the wake of an “urgent request” to universities made jointly by the Anti-Defamation League and the Brandeis Center. It urged campuses to investigate the activities of SJP for potentially supporting terrorism.
