Last month, The New York Times reported that a white nationalist and avowed antisemite named Preston Damsky was given an award designating him as the best student in a seminar taught at the University of Florida Frederic G. Levin College of Law. The honor was based in large part on a paper Damsky wrote that argued in favor of an \u201coriginalist\u201d interpretation of the Constitution and declared that the phrase \u201cWe the People\u201d in the Preamble to the Constitution refers exclusively to white people.<\/p>\n
Word of Damsky\u2019s honor brought back memories for me of a day that I spent in Florida decades ago with Muhammad Ali and Fred Levin (after whom the law school is named). Let\u2019s put the matter in context.<\/p>\n
Damsky\u2019s paper, as characterized by The Times, called for an end to the protection of voting rights for nonwhites in the United States and cautioned that turning over the country to a nonwhite majority would constitute a \u201cterrible crime.\u201d It also advocated for shoot-to-kill orders aimed at \u201ccriminal infiltrators at the border\u201d and warned of revolutionary violence by \u201cThe People\u201d if these steps were not taken.<\/p>\n
In a second paper, Damsky suggested that nonwhites currently living in the United States be given ten years to move to another country.<\/p>\n
The seminar was taught by John L. Badalamenti (a United States District Court judge appointed by Donald Trump).<\/p>\n
Damsky and Badalamenti don\u2019t sound like Native-American names. One might speculate that their forebearers were immigrants to the United States (possibly from Eastern Europe and Italy).<\/p>\n
Damsky has since been suspended by the university and placed \u201con leave\u201d by the law school after posting on X that the Jewish people should be \u201cabolished by any means necessary.\u201d He is currently challenging this suspension in court.<\/p>\n
Frederic G. Levin (after whom the law school is named) was an attorney who graduated from the University of Florida School of Law in 1961 and became one of the most successful personal injury trial lawyers in the country. His most significant courtroom triumph came when he successfully sued the tobacco industry on behalf of the State of Florida to recoup money expended for the cost of treating smoking-related illnesses. The litigation was Dickensian in length. The tobacco industry used every legal tactic at its command to delay the proceedings. Ultimately, the case was settled for $13 billion. The court-approved legal fee was $300 million.<\/p>\n
At that point, Levin became a philanthropist, donating tens of millions of dollars to educational and medical causes. The most notable of these donations came in 1998 when he donated $10 million to the University of Florida School of Law, the second largest cash donation ever received by a public law school up until that time. One year later, the name of the school was officially changed to the University of Florida Fredric G. Levin College of Law. Levin died of complications from COVID in 2021.<\/p>\n
How does this relate to Muhammad Ali?<\/p>\n
In 1997, Ali and I co-authored a short book titled \u201cHEALING\u201d that spoke to the need for tolerance and understanding among people of different races, religions, and ethnic backgrounds. Then Muhammad, his wife Lonnie, and I visited schools throughout the country with the help of HBO, the Boston Globe Foundation, and Turner Broadcasting. At each stop, we addressed students about the need for tolerance and understanding and gave them copies of \u201cHEALING\u201d.<\/p>\n