As Florida colleges change protest rules, some see voices stifled

TAMPA, Fla. — On the first day of the fall semester, a group of protesters clustered inside the Marshall Student Center, holding signs calling on the University of South Florida to divest its funds from companies that support Israel.

They planned to stage a silent sit-in in the atrium of the building. But they were met by administrators, who reminded them of new policies the university had adopted.

The protesters moved outside, where they silently held signs in the August sun as students walked past, most without taking much notice.

“It’s just stifling speech, that’s what it is,” Ria Sanchez, an organizer with the USF Divest Coalition, a student group that has been demonstrating since spring. “Because they can’t tell you, ‘You can’t protest for Palestine,’ they’re defining the ways in which you can protest in the most narrow ways possible, so that you have the least amount of impact.”

In the months since pro-Palestine protests on college campuses captured the nation’s attention, Florida’s universities have implemented new rules that some feel target certain viewpoints. While the policies don’t explicitly target protests, some are questioning the broader impact of what civic engagement is permitted on colleges.

“Different schools tended to find a different balance,” said Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression program manager Jessie Appleby, who has been involved in defending protesters’ rights at the University of Florida.

“Some, like Columbia or UCLA just went more towards, ‘We’re not going to enforce any rules, even the ones on the books,’ and experienced some issues with that,” she said. “Other schools were much, much more restrictive and at times, violated protesters’ First Amendment rights.

“Florida was on the more restrictive side.”

The fallout on campus

In late April, as protests on college campuses across the country took foot, Florida’s universities responded with a clear message.

Across the state, 37 protesters were arrested. At USF, 13 were arrested and police used tear gas. At the University of Florida, nine protesters were arrested.

In the weeks that followed, state leaders reiterated their messages. The governor criticized those joining a “chic cause,” and state university system chancellor Ray Rodrigues said Florida would respond as a “law and order state.”

“In Florida, there will be no negotiations,” Rodrigues said in May. “There will be no appeasement, there will be no amnesty and there will be no divestment under Gov. DeSantis.”

While two of the USF cases are still awaiting trial, none of the 13 arrested at USF faced prison time or significant consequences as most cases were diverted through pre-trial interventions. Felony charges dropped to misdemeanors, including the individual initially accused of bringing a firearm to campus.

That charge was dropped, and the non-student protester pleaded guilty to participating in an unlawful assembly and resisting officer without violence. The protester agreed to 100 hours of community service, staying away from the campus or protests, forfeiting firearms and attending a gun safety course.

Two students, who were not arrested, were suspended. One of those, Joseph Charry, a student from Colombia, was forced to return when USF did not renew his student visa. Charry has since obtained the paperwork to re-enroll at a different college in Tampa and plans to return soon.

“We know that we have a right to protest,” Charry said. “We know that there’s a First Amendment. We know that there’s the Campus Free Expression Act that only limits free speech on campuses in a very limited way. … We’re gonna keep on putting pressure on them. We’re gonna keep on fighting.”

At UF, legal charges have been dropped on some protesters, but all students who were arrested remain suspended for three years, at which point they would be required to reapply to the university. At USF and Florida State University, the Students for a Democratic Society chapters — student organizations that were involved in organizing — have been suspended from campus. New College threatened to withhold degrees from protesting students.

Each university’s board of trustees has since adopted its own additional set of measures to crack down on how protests will be handled.

At USF, that policy meant a host of new rules, including no protests past 5 p.m., no masks to conceal identities and asking for pre-approval to host events on campus. It also meant literature can’t be handed out without approval.

At a demonstration in October, students from the suspended Students for a Democratic Society planned a rally on campus at USF. They were met by police officers and asked to leave. Two were placed on interim suspension and three others faced student conduct charges. The most harsh sanctions were lifted and students were asked to write essays.

Since then, the group has occasionally protested at the intersection of 56th Street and Fowler Avenue, marching to the outskirts of campus and turning around.

Recently, the group filed a Title VI complaint with the Department of Education.

The complaint alleges “a pattern of discrimination at USF, as well as deliberate indifference to and reinforcement of a hostile learning environment for Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim students, students perceived to be Palestinian or Muslim, and students associated or allied with Palestinians.”

It points to messages from other student groups who said they did not want to work with the banned group because they feared their group would be targeted for political speech.

Ryan Hughes, a spokesperson for the university, said the group had been expelled “due to their past conduct. USF has been clear, and will again reiterate, that discrimination, harassment and retaliation will not be tolerated. USF continues to comply with all laws and university regulations.”

Elsewhere, demonstrations have also been quieter through the fall. At the University of Florida, protesters gathered outside an engineering career fair, where employers including Raytheon, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin — companies they called for the university’s divestment from — came to recruit students. They handed out flyers encouraging ethical alternatives.

It isn’t just protests

State Rep. Anna Eskamani said USF has implemented some of the most stringent policies across the state.

In August, Eskamani’s People Power for Florida embarked on their third annual fall voter registration “Dorm Storm” on move-in weekend. At USF, they were met by police asking them to leave.

Later, on Election Day, U.S. House candidate and former Hillsborough County Commissioner Pat Kemp was asked to leave campus, where she was canvassing at 5 p.m., according to USF student newspaper The Oracle.

Not all students want to engage in the act of protest, Eskamani said, but she thought the new rules inhibit students from civically engaging in many ways.

“It’s not just censoring one speech, but amplifying the speech they do like,” she said.

Althea Johnson, a university spokesperson, said “a non-student group” had attempted to hold a voter registration event on the Tampa campus earlier this semester, just outside of the Marshall Student Center and “was asked to relocate, which they did without incident, and were able to continue with their activity.”

The new rules haven’t stifled all political speech on campus. In September, on the day the state’s Board of Governors met at USF, the conservative nonprofit Turning Point USA had a table set up at the weekly campus market with signs propped against their table saying “Dump your socialist boyfriend,” and “Dump your socialist girlfriend.” A board behind the table said “I’m pro-choice. Pick your gun.”

Any organization is able to apply to table at the market through the university’s website. The university did not have any record of Turning Point registered at a market event, Johnson said. Representatives at the table referred the Times to the national organization, which did not return messages seeking comment.

Experts say it’s not uncommon to see restrictions around speech on campuses, particularly around elections.

Appleby, from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, said it often stems from a “profound misunderstanding” of the First Amendment.

Appleby said none of the policy changes she’s seen in Florida this year are “facially unconstitutional,” regardless of how they have been applied.

“They are all within the realm of reasonable time, place and manner rules, even if they are more restrictive than rules were previously,” she said.

Still, she called the way some Florida schools chose to handle their responses “insane,” particularly at UF, where she said nonviolent students have been suspended and unable to reapply for three years.

“I do not envy college administrators over the past year,” she said. “It’s a difficult job balancing the different constituencies as well as the interests of different groups and the schools obligations to, for instance, prevent discrimination while also protecting free speech.”