Ramaswamy Slams Haley and DeSantis For Trying to Silence Pro-Palestinian Protesters: ‘Textbook Constitutional Violations’
AP Photo/Reba Saldanha
Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy took aim at two of his GOP primary opponents in a Wall Street Journal op-ed on Thursday, accusing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) and Nikki Haley of infringing on the First Amendment.
Ramaswamy began by noting that 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 provid[ing] 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,’” he added, summing up his opponents’ fierce opposition to pro-Palestinian protests on college campus.
Ramaswamy denounced both Haley and DeSantis as standing behind “textbook constitutional violations.” He made clear that while he finds Students for Justice in Palestine to have “expressed heinous opinions,” that speech is fully protected by the First Amendment.
He then took further aim at DeSantis and accused him of wrongly weaponizing a Florida law against Students for Justice in Palestine:
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,” Ramaswamy added, drawing the distinction between free speech and abetting terrorism.
He went further and accused DeSantis of using false facts to defend the ban of the student group. “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,” Ramaswamy writes, adding:
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.
Ramaswamy concludes by accusing DeSantis and Haley of using the same tactics the left has used against Donald Trump and his supporters. “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,” he concluded.
