The University of Florida is going to start enforcing a decades-old prohibition against indoor protests following a raucous demonstration earlier this month against the selection of Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse as the sole finalist for the school president’s job.
The current university president, Kent Fuchs, said Monday in a letter to the university community that a protest inside a forum where Sasse was taking questions on Oct. 10 made it difficult to hear the Nebraska senator’s responses as protesters were banging their fists on windows, walls and furniture. Because of the demonstration involving 1,000 protesters, the discussion had to be moved online and shortened.
"When the forum ended and Dr. Sasse left to take a break, the protestors entered the room where he had been responding to questions," Fuchs wrote. "As a result, a planned staff forum in that space had to be moved online and was shortened. UF employees who traveled to the forum site did not get to hear Dr. Sasse speak in person, as many had planned to do."
While the university supports the First Amendment right to free speech, “with this commitment comes an obligation to protect the rights of everyone in our community to speak and to hear,” Fuchs said.
"To ensure that those rights are protected at upcoming events, the university will resume enforcement of a regulation on the books for at least two decades, prohibiting protests inside campus buildings," Fuchs wrote. "We have not enforced this policy in recent years because in the rare cases that protesters entered buildings, they were respectful of others and their rights to speak and to hear. This policy will be enforced during the Nov. 1 UF Board of Trustees meeting at Emerson Alumni Hall, where Dr. Sasse’s candidacy will be considered. Students who violate the regulation may be subject to discipline under the Student Conduct Code."
Paul Ortiz, president of the local faculty union at the university, said the student protesters were inaccurately characterized by university officials “in an unfair and demeaning manner.”
“One either believes in the First Amendment or one does not,” said Ortiz, a history professor. “Student, staff and faculty attempts to engage with Senator Sasse and the administration in a very important process were and are being rebuffed.”
Sasse, a Republican in his second Senate term, has drawn criticism from some at the school in Gainesville, Florida, for his opposition to same-sex marriage.
Sasse called the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2015 decision legalizing same-sex marriage “a disappointment to Nebraskans who understand that marriage brings a wife and husband together so their children can have a mom and dad.”
He also declared as unnecessary a bill protecting same-sex marriage that cleared the U.S. House in July.
When asked at the University of Florida forum earlier this month whether he opposes same-sex marriage, Sasse noted that it is now national law as ruled upon by the Supreme Court and that his goal is to create a “place of respect and inclusion for all Gators,” referring to the school’s nickname.
Others question his qualifications to run such a sprawling school with more than 50,000 students, and the secretive selection process used in choosing Sasse. A new Florida law allows universities to conduct much of the process outside of the state’s open meetings and public records laws.
Sasse, 50, was previously president of Midland University in Fremont, Nebraska, which has just over 1,600 students.