Florida Governor Ron DeSantis ordered state universities to ban Students for Justice in Palestine groups.
Speaking at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, DeSantis, who is running for president, declared: “We deactivated Students for Justice in Palestine in our Florida university system” to strong applause. He said the group was a “part of Hamas.”
In response, Vivek Ramaswamy, who is also running for president against DeSantis, released a statement criticizing DeSantis, whom he called “a government actor” for the declaration. He said: “These student groups are dead wrong in their beliefs, but part of what it means to live in the United States of America, part of what makes us different from them, from the Hamas and the terrorists of the world, part of what makes us different is that we do embrace the free and open exchange of ideas. And free speech means nothing if it's just about protecting the speech we agree with. Free speech rights are really about protecting the speech we disagree with most.”
Tensions over the Israel-Hamas War have been high in American colleges and universities. At Harvard and Columbia, “doxxing trucks” displayed the names of students in support of Palestine, while at New York’s Cooper Union, pro-Israel students say they had to barricade themselves in the library as pro-Palestine students pounded on the doors and windows.
