TALLAHASSEE, Florida — A federal judge dismissed two high-profile lawsuits Wednesday brought by pro-Palestinian student groups targeted by the DeSantis administration in the wake of the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker threw out the suits largely because university officials have not enforced Florida’s efforts to punish the organizations.
While Gov. Ron DeSantis called for Students for Justice in Palestine groups to be disbanded — and even touted the move although it never happened — Walker determined that, since no actions have been taken against them, the “threatened deactivation remains merely speculative.”
The decision notches a legal win for DeSantis and the state university system but could lead to another court battle if the schools ultimately dole out discipline.
“This Court does not fault [the students] for feeling anxious about the fact that the Governor — arguably the most powerful man in Florida — has repeatedly disparaged [group] members as 'terrorists,'" Walker wrote. “But this Court rejects counsel’s suggestion that it should find ... that [student groups have] standing simply because someone cloaked with great power makes coercive statements.”
The legal fight in Florida over whether schools can force out a student group despite free speech issues is emblematic of the conflicts erupting on college campuses across the country since the ongoing Israel-Hamas war began.
In the two lawsuits, pro-Palestinian groups at the University of Florida and University of South Florida contended the state’s deactivation order, encompassed in a memo from university system chancellor Ray Rodrigues, unconstitutionally penalizes them in violation of free speech and viewpoint discrimination laws. As such, the organizations were asking Walker to nullify the order through a preliminary injunction and stop the DeSantis administration from breaking up SJP groups.
Walker, though, concluded that the student groups fell short of showing in court that any member or prospective member saw their speech “reasonably chilled — or chilled at all — for fear of punishment.”
This is due to the universities expressing hesitation over the legality of disbanding the groups at the state’s request. In seeking to punish the student groups, state officials claimed that, through an alleged connection with a national organization, they are violating a Florida law that makes it a felony to “knowingly provide material support ... to a designated foreign terrorist organization.”
“In short, the record demonstrates that neither deactivation nor criminal investigation is imminent,” Walker wrote. “Instead, this Court finds that no actions have been taken in pursuit of deactivation under the Chancellor’s memorandum.”
Walker maintained in his ruling that the universities do “not intend to deactivate” the SJP groups. But attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union representing the UF students are urging the state to go further by formally acknowledging the order will not be enforced.
“Florida officials are now on notice that if they attempt to enforce the deactivation order, we will be back in court to uphold our client’s First Amendment rights,” Brian Hauss, senior staff attorney with ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, said in a statement. Officials with the university system and DeSantis administration did not respond to a request for comment about the court decision.
Attorneys for the state university system argued in court that the deactivation memo was “not enforceable” and “akin to an open letter” while attempting to make clear that no schools have acted against the groups.
Those arguments, however, marked an about face compared to statements from DeSantis on the campaign trail:
“We deactivated them,” DeSantis said in November during a GOP presidential debate. “We’re not going to use state tax dollars to fund jihad — no way.”
Coincidentally, a federal judge in an unrelated case Wednesday also handed DeSantis a victory by dismissing a lawsuit Disney filed against the governor.
Links for rulings: UF lawsuit; USF lawsuit; motion to dismissby the state.