Ron DeSantis’s Racism Just Won Him a Big Lawsuit in Florida

A Palestinian student advocacy group is taking to the legal system to fight back against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s efforts to kick them off student campuses.

On Thursday, the University of Florida chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine announced that it is suing DeSantis, Chancellor Ray Rodrigues, University of Florida President Ben Sasse, and other university leaders for “violating their [First] Amendment rights,” according to a statement by the nonprofit Palestine Legal.

The lawsuit, filed by Palestine Legal and the American Civil Liberties Union, stems from an unusual action taken by the state government last month, in which Rodrigues issued a letter calling for all chapters of the pro-Palestine group to be “deactivated,” claiming that they were providing “material support” to a “terrorist organization.”

Florida State’s chapter, however, argues that it has little to do with the national group or the statements it makes, according to the lawsuit.

SJP has just two chapters left in all of Florida: Florida State University and the University of North Florida.

“As students on a public college campus, we have every right to engage in human rights advocacy,” said Florida State’s chapter in a statement. “We know we have First Amendment rights in school and we’re bringing this lawsuit to make sure the government doesn’t silence us or others like us.”

Florida’s suppression of the local chapter is part of a larger national crackdown on the Palestinian advocacy group. Last month, the Anti-Defamation League and the Brandeis Center, both Jewish nonprofits, issued letters to nearly 200 university presidents across the country calling for an investigation into Students for Justice in Palestine.

Meanwhile, DeSantis has made his own stance on the protests abundantly clear.

On November 8, at the GOP presidential debate in Miami, DeSantis bragged that he had “deactivated” the group.

“We’re not gonna use tax dollars to fund jihad,” he said.

DeSantis also used the platform to openly threaten international students here on visas.

“If you are here on a student visa as a foreign national, and you’re making common cause with Hamas, I’m canceling your visa and I’m sending you home, no questions asked,” said DeSantis.

“Local chapters of student groups cannot be punished for their association with national organizations—nor can the government selectively punish and censor student groups for engaging in speech it doesn’t like or agree with,” said Palestine Legal.

The Tennessee city of Murfreesboro has revoked its ban on public homosexuality, but the rules it still has in place continue to unfairly target LGBTQ people.

Murfreesboro passed an ordinance in June banning “indecent behavior,” including “indecent exposure, public indecency, lewd behavior, nudity or sexual conduct.” The ordinance specifically mentions Section 21-72 of the city code, which states that sexual conduct includes homosexuality.

The city agreed on November 2, following a court order, to remove the mention of homosexuality from the city code, but the change has not yet been codified. Journalist Erin Reed reported that the amended code will go into effect on Friday. But as of publication, homosexuality is still listed as an act of public indecency on the Murfreesboro municipal code website.

Meanwhile, the June ordinance is still in effect and being used to unfairly target the LGBTQ community. An ACLU-backed challenge to the ordinance has already been launched, but that hasn’t stopped city officials from implementing the measure.

While the indecency ordinance does not specifically mention LGBTQ people, it is similar to the many drag bans passed across the country, all of which were ultimately blocked in court. The ordinance relies on overly vague language to frighten people into self-policing, and it hides behind the justification of “public decency” and protecting children. And the way it has been implemented makes it clear that the ordinance’s intended target is LGBTQ people.

City police also have the right to enforce the ordinance, meaning the rules are up to individual interpretation. As long as the city code still officially says homosexuality is banned, a strict or more conservative officer could target LGBTQ people.

Last week, the Rutherford County steering committee met to discuss removing all books that might potentially violate the ordinance from the public library. Murfreesboro city officials have already used the ordinance to ban four books that discuss LGBTQ themes.

In October, the organizers of BoroPride, the city’s Pride festival, won a court order barring Murfreesboro from enforcing the ordinance against Pride events. The court order also required that the city remove the mention of homosexuality from its public indecency code.

“Of course, they only did that after the judge slapped them down,” BoroPride volunteer Matt Ferry told the Murfreesboro Daily News Journal. “The problem is that the mayor and the city manager keep equating LGBTQ+ with actual sex predators, which couldn’t be further from the truth.”

“It’s hurting our LGBTQ+ community,” Ferry said. “It’s intimidating them. They were already afraid to come out in the open in Murfreesboro. This is going to make it worse.”

Donald Trump’s revenge spree against his former fixer Michael Cohen continued last month with a formal demand for Cohen to turn over all his personal devices.

Despite Cohen’s bombshell testimony in Trump’s $250 million New York bank fraud trial last month, this latest request is specific to the former president’s hush-money case, in which Trump faces 34 felony counts for falsifying business records related to paying off porn star Stormy Daniels in the waning days of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

On October 17, Trump’s legal team filed a formal demand for Cohen to give them “all documents and communications regarding the topics below that are stored on any medium under your possession or control, including but not limited to phones (including encrypted messaging applications), tablets, computers, and hard copy,” according to documents obtained by The Daily Beast.

District Attorney Alvin Bragg Jr.’s team argues that the tactic amounts to “witness intimidation” and could result in Trump disseminating sensitive texts, photos, and documents stored on Cohen’s cell phone. They are asking the judge to intervene, the outlet reported.

Trump has denied all wrongdoing and is seeking to dismiss the case outright, calling it a “discombobulated package of politically motivated charges” that interferes with his 2024 campaign to retake the White House.

Prosecutors have argued that reasoning shouldn’t hold any influence on the criminal proceedings.

“Defendant repeatedly suggests that because he is a current presidential candidate, the ordinary rules for criminal law and procedure should be applied differently here. This argument is essentially an attempt to evade criminal responsibility because [the] defendant is politically powerful,” prosecutors said on Thursday, according to ABC News.

The trial is slated to begin on March 25, though that date could be changed if it gets in the way of Trump standing trial over his involvement in the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, according to the judge.

Elon Musk has endorsed a virulently antisemitic conspiracy theory that Jewish people are getting what they deserve after pushing “diabolical hatred against whites.”

The blowup started with one user posting an ad on X, formerly known as Twitter, urging antisemites who believed “Hitler was right” should stop hiding behind a digital cloak of anonymity.

Then one user emerged with a neo-Nazi talking point, pegging Jewish communities for pushing alleged racism against white people.

“Jewish commun[i]ties have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them,” posted X user @breakingbaht. “I’m deeply disinterested in giving the tiniest shit now about western Jewish populations coming to the disturbing realization that those hordes of minorities that [they] support flooding their country don’t exactly like them too much.”

“You want truth said to your face, there it is,” they added.

“You have said the actual truth,” Musk responded.

The comments are disturbingly in line with the antisemitic “great replacement” theory touted by the Pittsburgh Tree of Life synagogue shooter, Robert Bowers. 

After more than an hour of intense backlash, Musk reframed his comments with another post, claiming only to be chastising the Jewish nonprofit organization the Anti-Defamation League, an organization he threatened to sue earlier this year for monitoring hate speech on X.

“The ADL unjustly attacks the majority of the West, despite the majority of the West supporting the Jewish people and Israel. This is because they cannot, by their own tenets, criticize the minority groups who are their primary threat. It is not right and needs to stop,” the entrepreneur added.

But far-right users are already chuffed by Musk’s engagement, adding their own prejudice into the mix.

“Judaism is extremely anti European,” wrote one user.

Another responded by retweeting his earlier comments claiming that if it weren’t for Jews, “we’d enjoy our 90% White countries. But they want their nation while destroying our sovereignty.”

The billionaire’s comments were also retweeted by Nick Fuentes, a Hitler-loving, self-proclaimed white supremacist who once analogized the murder of six million Jews during the Holocaust to cookies being baked in the oven.

Musk has an extensive history of leveraging his social media platform to spread controversial and problematic stances. Recently, the world’s wealthiest man has agreed with posts purporting that “‘decolonization’ is the woke version of jihad” and posted that they should “drop the “A” and go with Defamation League” after the Anti-Defamation League released a poll indicating that hate speech against Jews had risen by 61 percent on X since Musk’s takeover.

Representative Becca Balint on Thursday became the first Jewish member of Congress to call for a cease-fire in Gaza, joining a steadily growing number of Democrats demanding peace.

A total of 32 lawmakers have now called for a cease-fire. Balint joins 30 other representatives and just one senator, Dick Durbin.

“What is needed right now is an immediate break in violence to allow for a true negotiated cease-fire,” Balint wrote in a column for VTDigger. “One in which both sides stop the bloodshed, allow critical access to humanitarian aid and move towards negotiating a sustainable and lasting peace.”

“I’m one generation removed from the horrific trauma of the Holocaust, which impacted my family and reshaped the world. Like me, there are thousands of American Jews that share a deep emotional connection to Israel because of what it meant for the survival of the Jewish people in the face of extermination,” Balint said.

“This same history also drives so many of us to fight for the protection of Palestinian lives. I do not claim to know how to solve every aspect of this decades-long conflict. But what I do know is that killing civilians, and killing children, is an abomination and categorically unacceptable—no matter who the civilians are, and no matter who the children are.”

It’s notable that Balint is the first Jewish lawmaker to call for a cease-fire, in part because her words add weight against any arguments that supporting Palestinian civilians is somehow antisemitic. But it’s also significant that she called for a cease-fire before her fellow Vermonter Senator Bernie Sanders.

Sanders has remained silent on a cease-fire, despite huge amounts of pressure from his supporters. More than 300 Democratic National Convention delegates who backed Sanders during his 2016 and 2020 presidential runs urged him Wednesday to introduce a resolution calling for a cease-fire. Three weeks ago, nearly 300 of his former campaign staffers also called on Sanders to support a cease-fire.

Congress has been overwhelmed by the outpour of public support for a cease-fire. Democrats reportedly are telling their staff to let calls from voters go to voicemail while the party forms an official opinion.

President Joe Biden has so far resisted calls for a cease-fire, though, telling reporters last week that there was “no possibility” of one. Meanwhile, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer participated in a March for Israel rally on Tuesday. One of the speakers was far-right evangelical Pastor John Hagee, a known antisemite who once claimed Jews were responsible for the Holocaust. Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who last month suggested that civilians in Gaza are legitimate targets, also attended the rally.

On Wednesday, Democratic Representative Brad Sherman spread dangerous misinformation when he described a protest calling for a cease-fire “pro-terrorist.”

More than 11,100 Palestinian civilians, more than half of them children, have been killed in Israel’s ongoing retaliation to Hamas’s October 7 attack. The fighting has also killed at least 39 journalists and other media workers and more than 100 United Nations employees.