A new set of bills proposed by Republican legislators in Florida would pull scholarships from students found supporting a foreign terrorist group.
The proposed legislation would require universities to revoke any public funding assistance for offending students and reclassify them as “out-of-state” pupils, forcing them to pay higher tuition fees. Institutions of higher education would also be compelled to “report through the Student and Exchange Visitor Program of the United States Department of Homeland Security,” House Bill 465 explains, “information relating to the current status of a student who is attending the institution on an F-1 student visa if that student promotes any foreign terrorist organization.”
“Florida taxpayers should not be in the business of subsidizing the education of terrorist sympathizers who wish to do us, and others, harm,” Blaise Ingoglia, the senate bill sponsor, noted in a statement. “The heinous terrorist attack on October 7 have pulled back the curtain and exposed the rampant antisemitism happening on the campuses of colleges and universities throughout this country.”
“In Florida, we will not stand for Hamas apologists advocating for the genocide of the Israeli people.”
The bills, introduced during a special session on Wednesday in Tallahassee, and accompanied by legislative attempts to sanction Iran, led some Democrats to condemn the initiative as a distraction from pressing domestic matters. “Instead of addressing issues like property insurance, the Florida Legislature will be targeting students who they say are promoting terrorism. Meanwhile actual domestic terrorists will continue to access assault weapons,” Democratic state representative Anna Eskamani of Orlando wrote on X.
In recent weeks, Florida governor Ron DeSantis has actively sought to disband Students for Justice in Palestine, a controversial campus group that the administration had accused of supporting Hamas and applauding the atrocities committed against Israeli civilians. “If you are here on a student visa as a foreign national, and you’re making common cause with Hamas, I’m canceling your visa, and I am sending you home,” the governor said during the third GOP debate last week in Miami. “No questions asked.”
In late October, Florida state university system Chancellor Ray Rodrigues announced the administration’s decision to “deactivate” resident SJP groups at the University of Florida and the University of South Florida, citing the organization’s “material support” for Hamas. Rodrigues specifically pointed to a “toolkit” released by the national SJP umbrella group praising the Hamas invasion and demanding student members play a part in the global “resistance” movement. The document featured a cartoon graphic of Hamas paragliders for American chapters to distribute.
“Today, we witness a historic win for the Palestinian resistance: Across land, air, and sea, our people have broken down the artificial barriers of the Zionist entity, taking with it the facade of an impenetrable settler colony and reminding each of us that total return and liberation to Palestine is near,” the introduction of the document states. “As the Palestinian student movement, we have an unshakable responsibility to join the call for mass mobilization.”
However, free speech advocacy groups, notably the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), vowed to challenge the measure’s constitutionality, arguing it violated the First Amendment. The pushback ultimately led the DeSantis administration to reconsider its plan.
“These organizations represented to administration that they are not chartered or under the headship of the National Students for Justice in Palestine,” Rodrigues said during a Board of Governors meeting last Thursday. “The constitutions of both organizations, which were submitted by them at the beginning of the school year when they were registered as an active student registered organization, clearly state that their organization is not subservient or under the National Students for Justice in Palestine. Therefore, the universities have not deactivated their university chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine.”
“Additionally, both universities have obtained legal opinions. We have reviewed those opinions, and, in short, they raise concerns about potential personal liability for university actors who deactivate the student registered organization,” Rodrigues explained.
While walking back his earlier plan to bar the group, Rodrigues clarified that the administration is now working with local colleges to obtain “an express affirmation from their campus chapters affirming a rejection of violence, renunciation of Hamas, and commitment to upholding the law.”
Although the new bills do not specifically name SJP, they refer to students caught promoting “Hamas and Palestine Islamic Jihad.”