Cancel Culture Won’t Defeat Hamas
DeSantis and Haley target campus speech in an attempt to seem tough on terror
By Vivek Ramaswamy
Gov. Ron DeSantis last week instructed the chancellor of Florida’s state university system to disband campus chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine after the group celebrated the Oct. 7 attack and called for protests against Israel. In banning the group, Florida officials accused it of “knowingly providing material support” to a foreign terrorist organization—a crime under Florida law. Nikki Haley vowed to ‘pull schools’ tax exemption status’ if they don’t ‘combat antisemitism in all of its forms,’ including ‘denying Israel’s right to exist.
Florida accuses the group of providing “material support” for Hamas, but the statute defines the kind of support it prohibits: “monetary instruments or financial securities, financial services, lodging, training, expert advice or assistance, safe houses, false documentation or identification, communications equipment, facilities, weapons, lethal substances, explosives, personnel, or transportation.”
SJP members weren’t forging passports or shipping weapons. They were tweeting and engaging in other protected speech. The Supreme Court has said under a similar federal law that advocacy doesn’t count as unlawful material support
Mr. DeSantis has defended the ban, saying the group admitted “that they don’t just stand in solidarity, that they are part of this Hamas movement. That isn’t true. SJP’s statement says that it is part of “the diaspora-based student movement for Palestine liberation,” not part of Hamas. By associating with a movement halfway around the world, a student group doesn’t transform itself into an arm of a terrorist organization—particularly when there is no evidence that any of its members have ever spoken with Hamas, much less provided money or supplies.
Fair-weather fans of the First Amendment like Mr. DeSantis and Ms. Haley undermine the conservative crusade against cancel culture. We can’t condition our pleas on whether we agree with the views expressed.
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wsj.com
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