Gov. Ron DeSantis is about to get new anti-terrorism powers, thanks to the Florida Legislature. Campus activists, especially those who advocate for Palestinian causes, are watching with trepidation. 

The legislation, adopted last week, will give the governor a new tool to accomplish what he has tried to do in the past – crack down on campus groups that engage in protests, especially those on behalf of Palestinians in Gaza. His previous efforts have been blocked by the courts. 

Among the provisions of the new statute, the governor and his cabinet will have the right to designate foreign or domestic groups as terrorist organizations. Any state university student deemed to have “promoted” such an organization is to be “immediately expelled” and could conceivably face felony charges.

The new law has raised concerns about what constitutes a terrorist organization as well as how “promoting” such an organization should be defined.

The governor’s expanded powers are designed to protect the public, according to one of the bill’s sponsors, Sen. Erin Grall of Fort Pierce.

 “Our government needs to be able to respond to that for the safety of all of our citizens,” Grall said as the law was being considered. “We are talking about extreme violence. We’re talking about organizations that recruit for the purpose of growing the criminal organization.”

But the law also strengthens the governor’s ability to shut down campus protests he doesn’t like, and it comes on top of DeSantis’ previous efforts to install political allies as college presidents, and reshape academic offerings to eliminate so-called “woke” content.  

Historically, American campuses have leaned toward free speech and activism, dating back to the days of the Vietnam War, when student protests hastened the end of the unpopular military conflict.

In recent years, DeSantis has gone after two specific organizations supporting Palestinian causes – the Muslim civil-rights group CAIR-Florida and Students for Justice in Palestine. In the case of the latter, DeSantis sought to ban the organization from the University of Florida and the University of South Florida.

The UF chapter, which had not been implicated in any wrongdoing, sued and was represented by the ACLU. 

Florida backed down, took no disciplinary action against the students, and those two campus chapters remain active today.

CAIR-Florida aided the UF students in their legal defense, said Wilfredo Ruiz, a spokesman for CAIR-Florida. It soon found itself targeted by the governor. 

In December, DeSantis issued an executive order designating CAIR, which stands for the Council on Islamic Relations, a terrorist organization. 

The governor’s declaration prompted a Florida-based production company to back away from a podcast partnership with CAIR-Florida. 

A key issue: the DeSantis order targeted not just CAIR, but any individuals or groups that provided “material support ” to the organization. 

Earlier this month, the DeSantis order against CAIR was quashed by a federal judge. 

“The question before this Court is whether the Governor can, in a non-emergency situation, unilaterally designate one of the largest Muslim civil rights groups in America as a ‘terrorist organization’ and withhold government benefits from anyone providing material support or resources to the group,” U.S. District Judge Mark Walker wrote in his order. “This Court finds he cannot.” 

The moves against Islamic organizations come at a time when right-wing extremist groups — such as the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, who both played a central role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol — pose an increasing threat to public safety, according to annual reports by the Anti-Defamation League and other groups.

“Right-wing extremists are responsible for the great majority of extremist-related murders over the last decade,” states an ADL report released last year.  

At Florida International University, conservative students recently made headlines for engaging in a “group chat” that devolved into a dog pile of vile rants and misogynistic attacks on women, dubbed “whores,” plus musings on the variety of ways for murdering Black people, who were referred to by the N-word at least 400 times. 

The group chat was given a name by its users: “Nazi Heaven.” Its existence was revealed by the Miami Herald. Campus officials have denounced it and say they are investigating.

The group chat included student members of College Republicans and Turning Point USA – the group formerly headed by Charlie Kirk – as well as a secretary from Miami-Dade County’s Republican Party, which in the runup to Jan. 6 saw at least half a dozen past or present Proud Boys elected to its executive committee, according to a New York Times report at the time.

Miami historian and FIU emeritus professor Marvin Dunn said Kirk, the Turning Point USA leader who was fatally shot last year during a campus rally in Utah, “took the lid off of this seething, below-the-surface anger of young white men.” 

“That’s the undercurrent of what I see happening, and it is on campuses,” said Dunn, who last year began teaching a free Black history class under a tree at FIU to call attention to the state’s curbs on content relating to the subject.

DeSantis’ office did not respond to a question from The Florida Trib about whether his new anti-terrorism powers could apply to the group chat at FIU.

Under the new law, the governor and his cabinet must jointly designate “terrorist” organizations in Florida, and the evidence used to make this decision can be hidden from public view. 

Any group named a “terrorist” by the governor could choose to fight back in court. 

“I would expect litigation quite quickly,” said Christopher Mirasola, a University of Houston law professor, and former attorney-advisor at the Department of Defense.

“In the United States, we’re pretty tolerant of a wide range of speech,” Mirasola said. “Short of speech that suggests there’s going to be actual violence.” 

CAIR-Florida is weighing its legal options, Ruiz said, and other organizations might sue as well, alleging First Amendment violations.  

Hamas attack

Weeks after the Hamas attack on Israel in 2023, Florida’s state university system chancellor, Ray Rodrigues, in consultation with DeSantis, ordered the removal of Students for Justice in Palestine clubs from the UF and USF campuses. 

The reason: Florida said the students violated “terrorism” statutes by supporting Hamas — although the student chapters had not made any public statements in support of the group, which launched the bloody terror attack on Israel in 2023. 

A day after the Oct. 7 assault, the University of Florida SJP chapter issued a statement that students “mourned the loss of innocent Palestinian and Israeli life,” and “the killing of any life is always undignified and heartbreaking.”

The two student chapters of SJP did not respond to requests for comment from the Florida Trib.  

In a party-line vote, Florida’s GOP-dominated Legislature last week approved the bill that grants the governor expansive new anti-terrorism powers – powers that traditionally have rested mostly in the hands of the federal government. It sets forth procedures for publishing the names of terrorist organizations in the Florida Administrative Register and allowing for listed organizations to challenge the designation in court. 

The governor’s office spearheaded the writing of the bill, The Tampa Bay Times reported. An early version of the legislation was created and edited by members of DeSantis’ Office of Policy and Budget.     

Ruiz, the CAIR spokesman, accused the governor of “playing politics with our Constitution” in order to burnish his political reputation with conservative voters. 

Ruiz said falsely labeling Muslims as terrorists could potentially incite violence. 

“Who knows if a weirdo extremist, right-wing extremist, and there are many out there, especially in Florida, takes that seriously and perhaps takes some kind of action against our families or ourselves?” Ruiz said. “It’s extremely irresponsible.”

Others, including some conservatives, warn that the “terrorism” label could be applied differently if other states, including ones led by Democrats, start to pass similar laws, possibly targeting organizations like the NRA. 

Prior to the bill’s passage, Tina Descovich, the CEO and co-founder of the conservative group Moms for Liberty, warned on social media about how easily the “terrrorism” label can be tossed around. 

“As someone leading an organization that has been labeled that exact title by the previous administration, this is a really bad idea,” Descovich posted on X. 

Michael Vasquez is an investigative reporter at The Florida Trib. He can be reached at michael.vasquez@floridatrib.org.