The University of Florida campus group says the suspension over an off-campus post violated free speech

A dispute among student Republican groups in Florida over alleged antisemitic behavior is heading for a courtroom after a chapter at the state’s flagship university was suspended for an online post featuring two people giving Nazi salutes.

On Saturday, University of Florida (UF) blocked campus operations of the school’s College Republicans after the group’s state leadership said it had disbanded the chapter for engaging in “a pattern of conduct that violated its rules and values, including a recent antisemitic gesture”.

The chapter responded Monday by filing a free speech lawsuit against UF leadership, arguing that the action violated the constitutional first amendment rights of a member engaging in an off-campus activity.

  • Burninator05@lemmy.world
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    5 hours ago

    Why is the university being sued? The group was disbanded by the state level college republican group. That should have resulted in the university cutting ties anyway.

  • azimir@lemmy.ml
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    15 hours ago

    These Republicans are Nazis. Nazis have a basic plank of calling for the death of groups of people based upon race, ethnicity, birth defects, and even world views (Communists, Atheists).

    The university has every right to protect the other students at the university from genocidal maniacs. It’s not an issue of Tolerance. These Nazis broke the social contract of a pluralistic society so they’re no longer protected by the contract.

  • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
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    15 hours ago

    You don’t have a first amendment right to have a University of Florida chapter of the College Republicans. The University does have the right to dissolve clubs and organizations associated with the school if they are engaged in any conduct it deems inappropriate.

    • gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world
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      14 hours ago

      Nah, taxpayer funded institutions shouldn’t just be able to say any group they don’t like is inappropriate and ban them with zero process and University students do have a first amendment right to assemble themselves

      This Republican group should be banned because they’re a discriminatory group of bigots who make the environment unsafe for other students and violate civil rights laws, but what this dipshit university (which let this nazi club carry on for years until they made headlines and is actually now just trying to make a new college Republicans chapter, which is a whole other 1st amendment violation) thinks is “appropriate” should have absolutely nothing to do with it

      • stoly@lemmy.world
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        8 hours ago

        The moment a group in some disrupts the student experience for others, the university has a right to ban them.

        • gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world
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          7 hours ago

          the university has a right

          No, the university has an obligation to comply with laws that forbid groups that would try to disrupt some students’ experiences for bigoted reasons. They do not have the right to pick and choose when they honor that obligation.

          • stoly@lemmy.world
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            6 hours ago

            Not sure where you got the picking and choosing idea from–that came out of thin air.

            • gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world
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              5 hours ago

              You have the right to remain silent but we’re still having this conversation because rights are something you get to choose when you exercise and when you waive. The university’s board of trustees or whatever governing entity they have should not get to choose, they should just be reading the law and following it to the best of their ability.

      • Bahnd Rollard@lemmy.world
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        13 hours ago

        Oh. Thats a can of worms… By that logic, no university which recieves taxpayer money should not have the right to regulate speech on campus, which given how student loans and grants function, means all of them.

        But these universities are private entities not government bodies, even ones closely associated with states like this one here, and should be allowed to remove groups like this for a wide range of reasons.

        (IANAL), they should just air on the side of the parodox of tolerance and then not trust Florida to stick to it as its appeales get judge shopped around until someone gives the shoe leather sommelier what they want.

        • Null User Object@lemmy.world
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          10 hours ago

          no university which recieves taxpayer money should not have the right

          I think you probably mean

          no university which receives taxpayer money should not have the right

          or

          no every university which receives taxpayer money should not have the right

          • gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world
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            9 hours ago

            Once we get grammar squared away, a social studies lesson on how laws like Title IX protections against sex discrimination have been enforced on colleges and universities for the last several decades is also in order

    • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works
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      11 hours ago

      You’re thinking of “meddlesome”, as in meddle (interfere). “Mettlesome” means being characterized by mettle (courage).

      • homes@piefed.world
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        10 hours ago

        How can you believe that you know someone else else’s thoughts without blowing your own head off?

          • homes@piefed.world
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            10 hours ago

            Of course you were wrong. Apparently, you have more holes in your head than most humans

              • homes@piefed.world
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                9 hours ago

                Are you on shrooms or acid? Cause I definitely never said that.

                What the fuck is wrong with you?

                • GalacticSushi@piefed.blahaj.zone
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                  7 hours ago

                  Cause I definitely never said that.

                  You called Nazis “mettlesome.” As another user pointed out, mettlesome means characterized by courage. Rather than just saying “ah, my mistake I must’ve meant meddlesome like you said” you had a weird crashout over being corrected that included you saying someone was wrong to assume you weren’t calling Nazis courageous.

                  So not only did you technically say it from the get-go, you then doubled down later on. You said it twice in two different ways.

                • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works
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                  9 hours ago

                  I said:

                  I assumed you weren’t calling Nazis courageous. Was I wrong?

                  You replied:

                  Of course you were wrong

                  Dunno how else to interpret that.

  • teyrnon@sh.itjust.works
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    14 hours ago

    Telling their only problem with the nazi salutes is the anti salmonism. As if they were the only victims.

      • teyrnon@sh.itjust.works
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        13 hours ago

        Gross to not deny communists, socialists, leftists, trade unionists, opposition politicians, gypsies, slavs, gays, and others dying en masse at the hands of the Nazis and only recognize the suffering of the one group that is now itself being claimed to be represented by Nazis, which is to say the Israelis that claim the mantle of judism to deflect criticism from their naziism against other others.

        Your comment is gross. In defense of fascists pursuing a final solution against 5 million people, and multiple wars, just to start.

          • teyrnon@sh.itjust.works
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            11 hours ago

            Nothing I said was incorrect, or immoral, but what you are defending is unconscionable, so you should be the one to shut the fuck up because you can’t fucking read. A dozen halfwits notwithstanding.