“You have a right to go out and demonstrate, but you can't provide material support to terrorism," he said.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis defended his call to ban pro-Palestinian groups from Florida state colleges Sunday, after one of his Republican presidential primary opponents, Vivek Ramaswamy, slammed the demand as “a shameful political ploy.”

“It’s unconstitutional. It’s utter hypocrisy for someone who railed against left-wing cancel culture,” Ramaswamy posted on X (formerly Twitter) Thursday, alleging that it violates students’ right to free speech.

DeSantis held firm Sunday.

“This is not cancel culture. This group, they themselves said, in the aftermath of the Hamas attack, that they don’t just stand in solidarity that they are part of this Hamas movement,” DeSantis said during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

  • Waluigis_Talking_Buttplug@lemmy.world
    3519·
    1 year ago

    I’m wondering how many of the current commentors actually read the article, lol. Firstly. The title is wrong as he’s only challenging ONE group. Students for Justice in Palestine, so that’s click bait.

    DeSantis is making a claim that the group he’s basing this on has claimed solidarity with Hamas, a terrorist organization. Like, should we be letting pro Hamas people just float around collage campuses?

    Now, that’s what we should be looking at. We should be asking if this is just a racist political stunt. If you look up Students for Justice in Palestine, you’ll see articles claiming they have put out messages that are anti Semitic and pro hamas in nature. The chapter at this Florida school has apparently made it abundantly clear they are pro hamas. Professors and pro Jewish groups have written the management at the school and have been writing their representatives to address this issue.

    Can you chuds fucking read and think for yourself? Like, yeah I hate DeSantis as much as the next guy but if you just shovel this biased political shit into your brain without a second thought you’re not better than any republican who posts hurrr durrr liberals on Facebook.

    If you don’t take the time to actually look passed the headline, then you have no idea if this is a dickwad with too much power or if this is something else entirely. You don’t know if this is a targeted racist effort against students or if these are pro hamas students openly supporting (and potentially financially supporting) Hamas

    And just to add, you can be against this decision, saying it’s not the government’s duty to handle religious and cultural affiliations of students. But at least actually know why you’d be against it, ffs

    Edit: further, he’s not banning them, he’s only deactivating their official status, which means they cannot access school funds or materials for their purposes. They are still free to gather as any group has a right to.