Cancel culture won’t defeat Hamas

Gov. Ron 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.

Gov. Ron 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 provide[ing] material support” to a foreign terrorist organisation — 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.”

These are textbook constitutional violations. SJP expressed heinous opinions — and the First Amendment protects them all.

A woman holds a "Free Palestine" sign as NYU (New York University) students participate in a walkout during a national day of action called by the Students for Justice in Palestine in New York on October 25, 2023. Picture: Ed Jones/AFP

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. In Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project (2010), the plaintiffs wanted to provide money and training to terrorist groups from Turkey and Sri Lanka and asked the justices to strike down a federal law nearly identical to Florida’s on First Amendment grounds. They declined because the law penalised conduct, not speech: “The statute does not prohibit being a member of one of the designated groups or vigorously promoting and supporting the political goals of the group. What [it] prohibits is the act of giving material support.”

Students participate in a "Walkout to fight Genocide and Free Palestine" at Bruin Plaza at UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) on October 25, 2023. Picture: Frederic J. Brown/AFP

SJP’s views are repugnant, but the First Amendment is necessary to protect speech we hate. That’s why hate groups, pornographers and teenage protesters feature so prominently in First Amendment litigation. As Thomas Jefferson explained: “We have nothing to fear from the demoralising reasonings of some, if others are left free to demonstrate their errors.”

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: 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 organisation — particularly when there is no evidence that any of its members have ever spoken with Hamas, much less provided money or supplies.

Republican presidential candidate former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley.

In recent years, colleges have become anti-conservative cancel-culture munitions factories. They’ve disciplined students for displaying photos of President Trump, punished professors for refusing to use non-standard pronouns, and disinvited disfavoured speakers or tolerated mobs that shouted them down. 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.

Mr Ramaswamy is a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination.

The Wall Street Journal