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Members of an anti-ICE student group at Florida International University filed a lawsuit Tuesday against administrators for punishing them over a protest they conducted during a campus event featuring former Major League Baseball star Alex “A-Rod” Rodriguez.
The student-led group, ICEBreakers, argues that the non-violent, silent demonstration they held during the on-campus event with FIU President Jeanette Nuñez and A-Rod was an expression of their constitutionally protected free speech rights.
During the March protest, they silently stood at the front of the auditorium with “ICE OFF FIU” T-shirts for about three minutes before walking out. The demonstration targeted the university’s agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to deputize campus officers with federal immigration enforcement rights.
The students were subsequently charged with violating the university’s “Expressive Activities” policy, which states in part that to “protect health, safety, and welfare and prevent disruption of University activities, protests … picketing, demonstrations, and other similar expressive activities are prohibited inside University buildings.”
But attorneys for the ICEBreakers argue in the lawsuit that the protest “neither materially nor substantially disrupted the event or university operations.”
“The entire protest, from when the ICEBreakers stood up until they left the auditorium of their own accord, was less than five minutes long,” the lawsuit states. “At no point while the students were standing at their seats did anyone ask them to sit down or leave,” it adds. “At no point did any event attendees complain to any FIU staff that the students were disturbing them or blocking their view.”
The students, as part of their campus administrative punishment, must now make a “video reflection” requiring them to detail their understanding of the “Expressive Activities” policy and how they violated it before early September or a hold will be placed on their academic records barring them from registering for classes or obtaining financial aid, the lawsuit states.
But attorneys argue FIU’s “blanket ban on ‘expressive activities’ indoors” violates the students’ rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
Prior to the lawsuit being filed on Tuesday, FIU Associate Vice President Maydel Santana told The College Fix that the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act prohibits the university from discussing disciplinary matters regarding individual students.
However, in general, a public university campus is not a “single, undifferentiated public forum,” she said. “Rather, different areas of campus carry different forum classifications and may be subject to varying levels of regulation.”
The associate vice president added that courts “have long recognized that educational institutions retain authority to manage their facilities, protect instructional activities, preserve access to university operations, and ensure the safety and orderly functioning of the campus environment.”
Because of this, she said, “FIU may regulate the time, place, and manner of expressive activity through content-neutral rules that are narrowly tailored to serve significant institutional interests while preserving ample opportunities for expression.”
MORE: FIU disciplines silent anti-ICE protesters, demands recorded video apologies on school rules
