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.”
It's not up to the government to decide that. That's the whole point of the first amendment.
This is assuming they don't move past words.
I addressed that
And I'm disagreeing. He's still limiting free speech. I don't have to like what they are saying to realize their speech is still being limited by his actions. Say things we don't like you get your funding cut.
Say bomb on a plane get your freedoms cut. It's not the same
…how are you disagreeing with a point you agreed with? Are you just trying to be an argumentative tool today or something?
It sounded like you were agreeing with the decision. Are you not?
I was criticizing the fact that no one read it and decided to be upset at a headline alone. My point was that there is always more context to a story and context is important. You can't just see a politician or party you don't like do something and be upset, that's just fucking stupid, you have to know WHY you should be upset. What will end up happening is a voter base so fucking stupid they'll elect someone from the other party that ends up doing the same thing, but it's okay because you voted for (D) or for ®, right?
I acknowledge at the bottom of my comment that this isn't the government's business, but then even added that this is a public university and these groups are essentially school sanctioned clubs and can use school assets and potentially money for some things, and that this wasn't a ban, but a deactivation of official club status, meaning they can't use those assets or funds to support materially hamas (not that there were accusations of using school funds for hamas, just that it was technically POSSIBLE)
Even more context, suddenly things aren't so black and white.
I kind of agree with the groups deactivation, however DeSantis being the one to do it is problematic, he allowed Nazis at his rally and even retweeted Nazi propaganda at one point. So this puts him at a position of being by a hypocrite and racist. While I'm not necessarily disagreeing with the groups deactivation on principle, I don't like that it was done by this person with these views, because this opens up room for him to do other problematic shit related to the current political climate that I don't agree with.
I also think the issue is problematic because it was a government setting itself into religious matters. That's a bit troubling to me, and yet it was an official religious group in a public university
Again, not so black and white. I KIND of agree with the deactivation on principle, but I actually disagree with the government doing it, and I disagree witb DeSantis using his position of power to push an agenda.
I think many people here see "DESANTIS DID A THING!" and just lose their fucking mind. That's fucking stupid. Everything has layers and context and many points of view. Do I think "DESANTIS DID A THING" warrants outrage? Yes, we absolutely, but I think it shouldn't be the full stop when forming an opinion.
Fair enough
They are welcome to say whatever they like, but they are not guaranteed help from the government to actively spread their message.
They aren't banned or even kicked out, they just can't use school resources to advance their organization. They can still gather, they can still speak openly, they can still get their education.
Reading more deeply, this seems reasonable enough. I've seen a lot of conservatives equating "don't kill innocent Palestinians" with "Hamas supporter", but in this specific case they went out of their way to mention there's room for that but not room for "Hamas is our movement".
The world seems to have broken when there are obviously bad guys on both sides of the conflict…
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