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<\/a><\/p>\nThe University of Florida Levin College of Law. (Screenshot)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The honor for an avowed white supremacist and antisemite has roiled the campus at the public university, in a state where a 2023 law prevents state funding for university programs that advocate for \u201cdiversity, equity and inclusion or promote or engage in political or social activism.\u201d<\/p>\n
Preston Damsky, 29, received the \u201cbook award\u201d for a paper he wrote for a class last fall. In the paper, he argued for the removal of voting rights protections for non-white citizens and orders to kill \u201ccriminal infiltrators at the border,\u201d according to the New York Times.<\/p>\n
The award for the paper was given to Damsky by Federal Judge John L. Badalamenti, a Trump administration appointee who taught Damsky\u2019s class.<\/p>\n
The law school\u2019s interim dean, Merritt McAlister, initially defended Damsky\u2019s accolade, invoking \u201cinstitutional neutrality,\u201darguing n in an email to the law school community that professors must not engage in \u201cviewpoint discrimination\u201d and i according to the Times.<\/p>\n
McAlister\u2019s argument underscores a growing tension within academia as the Trump administration escalates its campaign against DEI with policies that have seen Holocaust remembrance pages stripped from government websites but allowed far-right sentiments to go unchecked.<\/p>\n
After receiving the class award, Damsky, who told the Times that referring to him as a Nazi \u201cwould not be manifestly wrong,\u201d doubled down on his incendiary messages. He opened an account on X in which he repeatedly posted antisemitic and white supremacist sentiments.<\/p>\n
Carliss Chatman, a visiting law professor at the school during the spring semester, told the Times that she was struck by the response to Damsky\u2019s essay in contrast to her experience at the school.<\/p>\n
A class Chatman had proposed titled \u201cRace, Entrepreneurship and Inequality\u201d was renamed by the school\u2019s administration to just \u201cEntrepreneurship\u201d before being added to the catalogue.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just find it fascinating that this student can write an article, a series of articles that are essentially manifestoes, and that\u2019s free speech,\u201d Chatman said. \u201cBut my class can\u2019t be called \u2018Race, Entrepreneurship and Inequality.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Shortly after arriving at the school, a number of Jewish and Black students approached Chatman with concerns about Damsky.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe should not be giving awards to things that advocate for white supremacy and white power,\u201d Chatman told the Times, adding that she believed the award had \u201cemboldened\u201d Damsky to begin posting his racist and antisemitic comments on social media.<\/p>\n
In one post on X, Damsky argued that President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio were \u201ccontrolled by Jews,\u201d a group that he called \u201cthe common enemy of humanity,\u201d according to the Times.<\/p>\n
In dozens of other posts Damsky made from February to April, he described Jewish people as \u201cparasitizing the West,\u201d described immigrants as \u201cinvaders\u201d and advocated for a white ethnostate, according to University of Florida student paper The Independent Florida Alligator.<\/p>\n
In a post in late March, Damsky wrote that Jews must be \u201cabolished by any means necessary,\u201d which prompted the school on April 3 to suspend him and issue a trespass order against him, barring him from the university property for three years.<\/p>\n
The controversy over Damsky\u2019s antisemitic and racist remarks comes as the Trump administration has cracked down on universities over alleged antisemitism on their campuses stemming from pro-Palestinian protests.<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, Florida officials rejected a bid from the university to hire the former president of the University of Michigan to helm the school, citing his response to pro-Palestinian protests on his former campus.<\/p>\n
The University of Florida has the highest number of Jewish undergraduate students of any public university in the country with a population of 6,500 Jewish students, or 19% of the student body, according to Hillel International.<\/p>\n
Following a request for comment from JTA, the University of Florida replied that they could not provide information on student records or disciplinary processes, but shared that on April 3 the University of Florida Police Department issued a trespass warning to \u201cthe person in question.\u201d Administrators haven\u2019t said what led to Damsky\u2019s trespass order, which came following scrutiny of his social media.<\/p>\n
In a statement, the University of Florida Hillel condemned Damsky\u2019s rhetoric and said that they hoped the school\u2019s administration would review the policy that allowed him to receive the award for his paper.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no place at UF for this type of hateful rhetoric. We are grateful that the university responded by suspending the student, barring him from campus, increasing police presence around the law school, and initiating disciplinary proceedings aimed at expulsion,\u201d the statement read.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis \u201cbook award\u201d was presented automatically to the student with the top grade in the course, which creates a false impression of endorsement of the student\u2019s work. We hope the administrators will take time to review this policy moving forward,\u201d the statement continued.<\/p>\n
On March 21, a University of Florida law professor replied to Damsky\u2019s post calling for the elimination of Jewish people, and asked if he would murder her and her family, according to the Alligator.<\/p>\n
In response, Damsky wrote, \u201csurely a genocide of all whites should be an even greater outrage than a genocide of all Jews, given the far greater number of whites.\u201d<\/p>\n
One 24-year-old Jewish third-year law student who was only identified by his first name, Daniel, told the Alligator in April that he wanted the law school to denounce Damsky\u2019s views and draw a line between offensive speech and calls for violence.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom my perspective, it just looks like he got away with it for two years until he threatened a faculty member,\u201d Daniel told the Alligator. \u201cIt\u2019s been very concerning. It felt like the administration just thought that they could close their eyes and wait for it to go away.\u201d<\/p>\n
McAlister addressed communal outcry over the school\u2019s response to Damsky at a town hall meeting in April in which she said that the law school\u2019s reputation was a \u201cforemost concern\u201d and law school leaders were working with \u201cmain campus\u201d to address Damsky\u2019s case, according to the Alligator.<\/p>\n