Bill Cotterell: Is Gov. DeSantis trampling on First Amendment rights for political gain?

As a graduate of Harvard Law School, Gov. Ron DeSantis is presumed to have more than a passing grasp of the Bill of Rights, particularly the First Amendment.

But as a politician, trying to woo the rabble of the Republican base away from a former president who uses terms like “vermin” and “enemy of the people” in his standard stump speech, DeSantis needs to constantly one-up the all-time tough guy of presidential campaign history. And if that means occasionally stomping all over the free speech and assembly rights of his critics, Florida taxpayers will pay lawyers to defend the governor’s constitutionally questionable actions in court.

Just last month, for instance, U.S. District Judge Mark Walker ordered the state to pay more than $372,000 to lawyers for three University of Florida political science experts. Professors Sharon Austin, Michael McDonald and Daniel Smith had sued in 2021 because they had been ordered by the university not to testify for the plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging changes the DeSantis-dominated Legislature had made in Florida’s election laws.

The UF administration reasoned that whatever the value of information the professors might present, having three of its employees testify on behalf of people suing the state would not endear the Gainesville campus to the governor and Republican legislative leaders who appropriate money for state agencies. It’s the same personnel-management principle that Mafia bosses use to show foot soldiers why they shouldn’t flip on the family.

But that pesky ol’ Constitution says the government can’t intimidate witnesses – go figure. So, DeSantis got another legal rebuke from Walker, who slaps him around like Moe used to whack Larry and Curly in those old Three Stooges dramas.

The U.S. Supreme Court recently refused to let the state enforce its ban on drag shows when children are present. A court challenge is still pending against the law, which doesn’t mention drag specifically but says the state can prosecute joints that allow children in audiences of sexually explicit entertainment.

A guy in a sequined gown, with a big wig and inch-long eyelashes, may not be quite the same freedom fighter as Thomas Paine penning revolutionary tracts in colonial times or Martin Luther King Jr. speaking out against the Vietnam War in the Sixties. But the government has to have a damned good reason for stifling such expression – and political convenience isn’t good enough.

That’s what Republican presidential candidate DeSantis is doing with his attack on “woke.” Letting a few vocal parent groups remove books from school libraries, forbidding “diversity, equity and inclusion” policies on campus and – most recently – banning controversial and unpopular organizations from state schools are sure crowd pleasers at a GOP rally. Devaluing the First Amendment seems a small price for stifling disagreeable protests and making a momentary gain in the GOP presidential primaries.

Backed by the American Civil Liberties Union, a pro-Palestinian student group is suing Florida officials, including DeSantis, contending their freedom of speech and lawful assembly has been violated by state efforts to banish their organization from the State University System. On Oct. 24, Chancellor Ray Rodrigues ordered Students for Justice in Palestine disbanded on campuses.

“We’re not going to use state tax dollars to fund jihad,” DeSantis said in a recent Republican presidential debate.

Of course not. No one is suggesting that organizations, or individual speakers, advocating terrorism or hatred should be a regular part of campus life, like a fraternity or Young Democrats. But exiling an organization, rather than forbidding violent or disruptive acts by individuals, runs afoul of constitutional rights.

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It’s easy to pick on the most hated people in town, and politicians will always seek out the easiest target – whether it’s Gov. George Wallace shouting, “Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever” at his Alabama inauguration in 1963 or Trump offering to post bond if one of his followers beat up a heckler. Political courage was Florida Gov. LeRoy Collins standing for peaceful integration and obedience of federal law in the 1950s, not DeSantis removing state attorneys to bolster his law-and-order bona fides.

We’ve seen a lot of leaders seize upon widespread fear or prejudice and ride roughshod over the rights of people who were powerless and hated. There was the whole Reconstruction era, the Palmer Raids of 1919-20, U.S. Sen. Joe McCarthy’s Red Scare witch-hunt of the 1950s. Demagogues can always draw a crowd and advance their own political careers.

Sometimes it works for a while, but it never ends well.

Bill Cotterell is a retired Capitol reporter for United Press International and the Tallahassee Democrat. He writes a weekly column for The News Service of Florida and City & State Florida. He can be reached at bcotterell@cityandstatefl.com.

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This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Bill Cotterell: Is DeSantis swapping free speech for right-wing votes?