{"id":195257,"date":"2026-03-17T18:44:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T18:44:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/195257\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T18:44:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T18:44:07","slug":"florida-republican-student-group-sues-university-after-suspension-over-nazi-salute-post-republicans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/195257\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida Republican student group sues university after suspension over Nazi salute post | Republicans"},"content":{"rendered":"

A dispute among student Republican groups in Florida over alleged antisemitic<\/a> behavior is heading for a courtroom after a chapter at the state\u2019s flagship university was suspended for an online post featuring two people giving Nazi salutes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, University of Florida (UF) blocked campus operations of the school\u2019s College Republicans<\/a> after the group\u2019s state leadership said it had disbanded the chapter for engaging in \u201ca pattern of conduct that violated its rules and values, including a recent antisemitic gesture\u201d.<\/p>\n

The chapter responded Monday by filing a free speech lawsuit against UF leadership, arguing that the action violated the constitutional first amendment rights of a member engaging in an off-campus activity.<\/p>\n

In an X post<\/a>, the chapter also suggested its suspension was tied to its hosting of an event with James Fishback, a controversial far-right candidate for Florida governor who has angered more moderate Republicans with his extremist views<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A separate but similar incident unfolded earlier in March at Florida International University after the Miami Herald published leaked group chat messages<\/a> from a number of its students, including an official of the Miami-Dade Republican party, featuring racist, sexist, antisemitic and homophobic comments.<\/p>\n

The Guardian reported in November on a surge of antisemitism investigations<\/a> on US campuses after the 7 October 2023 terrorist attacks by Hamas and Israel\u2019s subsequent war in Gaza.<\/p>\n

In a statement<\/a> announcing the UF group\u2019s suspension, Donald Landry, the university\u2019s interim president, said the school \u201chas emphatically supported its Jewish community and remains committed to preventing and addressing antisemitism and other forms of discrimination and harassment\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said UF would work with the Florida<\/a> Federation of College Republicans (FFCR) to restore the chapter under new student leadership when it was ready to do so.<\/p>\n

In the social media post announcing it had retained legal counsel to fight its termination, the campus-level chapter said UF was talking to the wrong umbrella group.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey cited the FFCR, an organization that we are not a part of that has no authority over our chapter. We are proud members of a different organization,\u201d it said, referring to a group called the College Republicans of America (CRA).<\/p>\n

It reposted a letter<\/a> from the CRA chair, Will Donahue, calling on Republicans to \u201crefocus\u201d on fighting political opponents rather than each other.<\/p>\n

\u201cA political movement does not survive by devouring its own,\u201d Donahue wrote.<\/p>\n

The CRA recently appointed<\/a> far-right social media personality Kai Schwemmer, a close associate of white nationalist Nick Fuentes, as its political director. It comes as college rightwing groups further test the boundary of free speech and racial hatred after the killing of Charlie Kirk, the conservative campus activist, at a university speaking engagement in Utah in September.<\/p>\n

Several elected Florida Republicans have called out the students\u2019 behavior and said there is no place in the party for antisemitism or racism.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe individuals in the group chat have exposed how profoundly misaligned their beliefs are to the views of the Republican party of Florida,\u201d state senators Ileana Garcia, Alexis Calatayud and Ana Maria Rodriguez said in a joint statement<\/a> after the FIU episode.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe statements made by those individuals clarify their moral and intellectual corruption and demonstrate a complete misalignment with core, shared American values.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Miami Herald reported<\/a> that the UF chapter\u2019s lawsuit was filed Monday in federal court in Gainesville. It said the university unlawfully \u201cdeactivated and shut down\u201d the club in retaliation for protected political speech and asked for an emergency order to restore its campus access.<\/p>\n

The UF chapter\u2019s attorney, Anthony Sabatini, a former Republican state representative, told the Herald that the group was being targeted for promoting an \u201caggressive America First agenda\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese guys are \u2026 more hard-edged, what I would call the true right, and they wanted to punish them for that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Fishback, in a post on X<\/a>, called UF\u2019s action deactivating the chapter \u201ca disgusting attack on the first amendment\u201d \u2013 and said he stood with \u201cany student group (on the right or left) whose free speech rights are under threat\u201d.<\/p>\n

A UF spokesperson said the university would not comment on pending litigation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A dispute among student Republican groups in Florida over alleged antisemitic behavior is heading for a courtroom after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":195258,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-195257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195257\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}