Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ripped pro-Palestine protests on university campuses within Democratic states Thursday on Fox News, saying Florida will not be “running daycare centers.”
DeSantis appeared on “Hannity” to discuss the continued protesting on school campuses across the U.S. as many students have demanded that universities divest from their support of companies connected to Israel. Fox host Sean Hannity began by applauding the Florida governor on the state’s “no moral ambiguity,” noting it was the reason why students in Florida weren’t protesting like those at Columbia University or the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). (RELATED: Columbia Protesters Demanded Deliveries Of ‘Humanitarian Aid.’ The NYPD Delivered Justice Instead)
“Well, that’s right, Sean. In a variety of ways, Florida is not California [and] not New York on a whole host of issues, but particularly on how you handle these universities. These students that think they can set up an encampment or take over buildings, they don’t have a right to do that and they will be held accountable in Florida,” DeSantis stated.
“When I see in places like Columbia, Harvard, and the California schools, the administrators, the presidents of these universities are just too weak to do anything about it. Maybe they agree with what’s going on, but there’s no consequences. So when there’s no consequences you’re going to continue to see that conduct.”
“I can tell you in Florida there will be consequences. We are not running daycare centers at our universities, we’re running universities. People are there to learn and people are there to better themselves. We’re not going to sit there and have tents spring up all around our university campuses, it’s unacceptable,” DeSantis stated.
While students have been protesting the Israeli-Hamas conflict since the Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel, Columbia University students began the start of their ongoing large demonstrations on April 17. Since last month, protesters have not only taken over sections of the lawns to advocate for their cause, but early Tuesday morning protesters took over the school’s Hamilton Hall.
Video footage circulated online showing some of the protesters smashing door windows as students had piled in to barricade themselves and were seen flying an “intifada” flag outside of one of the windows. By late Tuesday evening, however, Columbia administrators gave New York Police Department (NYPD) officials the green light to take back the building, requesting that they officials stay on campus past graduation.
A similar scene unfolded early Wednesday morning for students at UCLA, where pro-Palestine activists could be seen taking over a section of the campus by barricading themselves in their encampment. Tension broke though between the activists and counter-protesters, resulting in chaotic scenes showing the two groups clashing. By early Thursday morning Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officials and California Highway Patrol (CHP) officers took back the area of the school and detained some of the activists.