Several people were arrested Monday during pro-Palestinian protests at the University of South Florida's Tampa campus and the University of Florida in Gainesville.
They follow a wave of protests across the nation over the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine, and calls for universities to cut ties with Israel or divest from companies that support the military conflict in Gaza.
Gov. Ron DeSantis addressed the protests during a news conference Tuesday in Naples, in which he announced the state is waiving admission fees for Florida state parks during Memorial Day weekend.
DeSantis said he supports the students' First Amendment rights, and said they are free to gather and speak out for either side.
He said he does not condone any actions that become disruptive.
"You can say whatever you want about Israel, pro or con," DeSantis said. "What you don't have a right to do is commandeer property. You don't have a right to harass individual students or faculty members."
The arrests — including a member of WUSF's administrative support staff — came after a protest that started at noon near the school's library and proceeded to the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Plaza lawn, where people attempted to set up an encampment.
"You can say whatever you want about Israel, pro or con. What you don't have a right to do is commandeer property. You don't have a right to harass individual students or faculty members."Gov. Ron DeSantis
This went against a directive by university officials, who emailed students Sunday night stating that tents could not be set up on campus and that such actions could result in an "immediate interim suspension of a student organization and potentially additional sanctions for groups or individuals through the student conduct process."
The Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations issued a statement Tuesday condemning the arrests.
“Arresting a particular group of students for their stance in a peaceful protest is blatant authoritarian censorship and targeting," Executive Director Imam Abdullah Jaber said in the statement. "USF officials have failed in their duty to protect our children and uphold freedom of expression and the First Amendment.
“The foundation of academia is debate and dialogue, even over unpopular opinions. Every progress in our nation is a result of protest and debate, which are essential elements of our democracy. Punishing our children mirrors our nation’s past grave mistakes — it has never and will never lead to a solution.”
DeSantis said he backs similar stances that universities have taken to ensure such protests remain peaceful.
He cited situations that are arising at other universities across the country — including Columbia University in New York, where he said protesters are "taking people captive now."
"In Columbia, they were blocking a Jewish professor from being able to cross into a building just because he was Jewish. They were targeting for that. That's different than having an opinion on something.
"We're going to continue to do that and make sure that we are upholding basic standards of conduct and basic standards of decency. What I've found that these people who do this stuff in these other parts of the country, they do it because there's never any repercussions, and they just get away with it."
Speaking later Tuesday at the Tampa Bay History Center to announce a tax-free holiday in July, DeSantis said he backs similar stances that universities have taken to ensure such protests remain peaceful.
"They're overrunning the school. That is the inmates running the asylum," DeSantis said of Columbia. "That doesn't work. And so in Florida, you can say things, you can have positions, that's fine. But we're not going to let you set up a tent city in the middle of a university. That is not going to happen."
WUSF reporter Nancy Guan contributed to this story.
