Judge dismisses UF College Republicans’ case against UF

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Following a two-day trial earlier this week, Judge Mark Walker entered an order dismissing the UF College Republicans’ lawsuit against the University of Florida.

The UF College Republicans (UFCR), represented by Anthony Sabatini, argued that UF had engaged in viewpoint discrimination when it deactivated the club; UF stated that the club was deactivated at the request of the Florida Federation of College Republicans (FFCR), but UFCR said it was because one of its members had been photographed performing a Nazi salute.

However, while agreeing that UF cannot deactivate clubs based on viewpoints held by club members, Judge Walker disagreed that there was enough evidence supporting Sabatini’s argument that viewpoint discrimination was UF’s reason for deactivating the club.

Judge Walker wrote that it is undisputed that FFCR contacted the UF Office of Student Engagement, alleging that UFCR had engaged in antisemitic conduct; that FFCR was the parent organization of UFCR and had voted to dissolve the UFCR chapter; and that UFCR no longer had permission to use the term “Republican.”

According to Judge Walker, witnesses testified “uniformly” that the Office of Student Engagement alone made the decision to deactivate the club, under no pressure from the UF administration. While Sabatini “did a remarkable job of connecting the data points available to him and arguing that the circumstantial evidence in this case creates a convincing mosaic that UF’s administration drove the deactivation decision,” Judge Walker wrote, “nothing suggests that pressure seeped into Student Engagement’s decision.”

Judge Walker found that although UF’s administration was “laser-focused on UFCR’s members’ antisemitic speech” due to UF’s large Jewish student population and “needed to ‘get out in front’ of the considerable social media controversy surrounding the Nazi salute photo,” there was no evidence that the Student Engagement employees who decided to deactivate UFCR were “coerced, pressured, or otherwise influenced”.

Judge Walker wrote that although UFCR’s president credibly testified that UFCR was never formally affiliated with or chartered by FFCR, “Student Engagement’s decision that they were, based upon the evidence provided to them, was a reasonable mistake. Moreover, this Court finds that Student Engagement was correct that UFCR was, in fact, using the ‘Republican’ name in violation of UF policy.”

FFCR has a charter from the Republican Party of Florida to use the term “Republican,” but UFCR claimed that it was not affiliated with FFCR and presented no evidence that it had independent permission to use the term.

Because Judge Walker found that UFCR would have been deactivated even if there had been no allegations of antisemitic speech, he dismissed the case with prejudice.