Scott Maxwell, opinion columnist for The Orlando Sentinel, wrote about the state’s effort to silence speech, even a silent protest. It is heartening to know that there are students in Florida willing to dissent. It is disheartening to learn that state officials never heard of the First Amendment to the Constitution.

Back in March, a handful of students at Florida International University stood up at an event where the school president was speaking and showed off their T-shirts.


They didn’t say anything to interrupt the program or speakers.


Instead, they simply revealed shirts that said they wanted the state school to stop coordinating with ICE on immigrant crackdowns on campus via the slogan: “ICE OFF FIU.”


Now, months later, the school is trying to discipline the students — even threatening to withhold their diplomas — if they don’t apologize for expressing their opinions.


In one of the creepiest twists, the school told the students that the only way they can escape punishment and “receive a diploma” would be to make a two-minute “video reflection” swearing they now understand what they did wrong.


It sounds like a hostage video. Except in this case, the hostages are being forced to apologize for free thought and expression.


Such is life in the “Free State of Florida.”


Once upon a time, college students were encouraged to be free-thinkers. That is, in fact, what Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida’s other GOP leaders claim to believe … when they’re renaming roads after Charlie Kirk anyway.


But what they really mean is that Florida students should think the way they do or else shut the hell up.


And this is just the latest attack on speech by DeSantis and his fellow Republican lawmakers.
There was also the state’s infamous “Stop WOKE” bill where the governor and lawmakers tried to make it illegal for private companies to hold diversity training sessions that offended these bro-flakes’ fragile sensibilities. (That part of the law was, of course, ruled unconstitutional.)


There have been multiple cases where the state tried to fire employees who said things the politicians disliked about Charlie Kirk. (The firings have been repeatedly challenged, with the state already agreeing to pay one fired biologist $485,000 for her wrongful termination.)

And a few years ago, DeSantis signed a law that would’ve allowed the state to actually imprison Floridians who donated more than $3,000 to citizen-led efforts to get amendments on the state ballot. Yes, imprison. (A federal judge appointed by Donald Trump struck down that law as well, declaring the politicians’ attempt to arrest citizens who donated to causes the governor disliked as “wholly foreign to the First Amendment.”)


It’s tempting to go numb to this constant and casual assault on your rights. And to the steady stream of public money spent on these losing legal battles with attorney bills at $675 and $725 an hour.


But this Independence Day weekend seems like a good time to remember that truly patriotic Americans don’t support government trying to suppress speech.

You don’t have to agree with the FIU students’ anti-ICE sentiments. Many Floridians certainly don’t.


But if you claim to call yourself a patriot, you’d damn well better support their right to express it.
As Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. famously said, the First Amendment wasn’t created to protect viewpoints everyone likes, but specifically for “freedom for the thought that we hate.”


In the FIU case, Community Justice Project attorney Adam Saper, who’s representing the students pro bono, said: “This prosecution is the most clear violation of the constitution’s constitutional rights. They’re trying to silence these particular students who were speaking up against a policy of this school.”

That sentiment was echoed by the national free speech group, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), which honed in on the fact that the targeted “speech” involved words on a T-shirt — which the university obviously doesn’t crack down on with any regularity.


“Since this case involves clothing, would a student be prohibited from wearing a Malcolm X T-shirt in a university building under the same policy?” asked FIRE attorney Garrett Gravley.

“What about a Palestinian keffiyeh or an Israeli flag lapel pin? If a student wore purple for Domestic Violence Awareness Month, would that be actionable?”


Of course not. Even if the students had the audacity to … um … stand.


According to emails from university officials obtained by Axios and other news outlets, even school officials conceded that the students’ actions “did not disrupt the event.”


Basically, as far as protests go, this one seemed about as tame as it gets. Just a thoughtful, brief and silent statement of opinion. But apparently that was too much for Florida.


The school has said little about the case. But in correspondence with the students, FIU cited its policies on “student conduct” and “expression.”
Those rules are a lengthy, self-contradicting mess. They attempt to place a bevy of restrictions on students expressing their viewpoints while also stressing that none of the school’s rules “should be interpreted” as abridging anyone’s Constitutional rights, including “the freedom of expression protected by the First Amendment.”

It’s like a prosecutor telling you that you’re not entitled to a speedy trial or access to an attorney … while acknowledging that the United States Constitution says you’re guaranteed to precisely that.


Interestingly, the students staged their silent protest in March without much hubbub. It wasn’t until weeks later that the school told the kids they were in trouble.


It almost looks like someone told school president Jeanette Nuñez — DeSantis’ former lieutenant governor, one of many DeSantis allies rewarded with cushy, high-paying university jobs — that she’d better get these critically thinking kids in line.


I sent Nuñez and some of her staffers an email this past week, asking if anyone in Tallahassee had told her she needed to crack down on the students. She did not respond.


She also didn’t answer another question I posed: Whether she’d ever attended her own school’s class on the First Amendment — one that says it explains why “the rights of conscience” are protected in this nation.