Last week, Florida state universities Chancellor Ray Rodrigues, “in consultation with” Gov. Ron DeSantis, sent a letter to Florida university officials, asking them to “deactivate” the student chapter National Students for Justice in Palestine, saying the group violates federal law. The law prohibits “providing material support or resources for terrorism or to terrorist organizations.”
The letter cites the student group’s “toolkit” and claims that it provides evidence of “support of terrorism.” The toolkit included a line saying, “We as Palestinian students in exile are PART of this movement, not in solidarity with this movement.”
NBC News journalist Kristen Welker asked DeSantis about Florida’s banning of pro-Palestinian groups from Florida state colleges during NBC’s “Meet The Press” on Sunday.
She asked DeSantis for a response to Vivek Ramaswamy’s X post criticizing the ban as a breach of Americans’ First Amendment rights. Ramaswamy called DeSantis’ ban “utter hypocrisy from someone who rallied against left-wing cancel culture.”
In the interview, DeSantis said, “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, they are part of this Hamas movement. Yeah, you have a right to go out and demonstrate, but you can’t provide material support to terrorism.”
He continued, “They’ve linked themselves to Hamas and so we absolutely de-certified them. They should not get one cent of taxpayer dollars, and we also have strong laws in Florida against fundraising for groups like Hamas, and we are enforcing those vigorously.”
Banning National Students for Justice in Palestine across Florida state universities campuses is not a First Amendment right violation, DeSantis said, it’s “a material support to terrorism issue.”