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One former Republican politician who now leads a Florida public college is criticizing a present GOP politician who was floated to steer one other Florida public college—throughout what a former college member allegedly stated about Israel.
Politico reviews that Randy High-quality, a Jewish Florida state consultant whom Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis had wanted to lead Florida Atlantic University, posted Friday on X {that a} College of Florida professor was “instructing that Israel eradicating Hamas is like Germany eradicating Jews.” High-quality’s put up included a screenshot wherein an account below the title Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons referenced the deaths in Gaza and stated “Israel is a Nazi state.”
High-quality’s put up that Politico linked to had been taken down as of Tuesday afternoon, and Inside Larger Ed was unable to search out Simmons’s alleged put up. A “Dr. Gwendolyn Zoharah” account posted Sunday on X that “Israel’s Evil Actions are so horrible that it takes your breath away! These individuals who had been the victims of a Nazi Holocaust is [sic] now doing the identical to the Palestinians!”
On Monday, former U.S. Senator Ben Sasse, who now leads UF, posted an online statement titled “Schooling amid infinite on-line screaming.” The assertion is addressed to his cupboard and deans.
“Simply needed you to know that I’ve gotten many variations of this allegation all weekend: A tenured UF professor is supposedly forcing despicable antisemitic rubbish on UF college students in UF lecture rooms,” Sasse wrote. “This appears to have began from a member of the legislature in Tallahassee exaggerating on social media and sharing too-good-to-be-checked clickbait that he is aware of isn’t true. I received’t hyperlink right here to the thirsty, attention-desperate put up.”
Whereas Sasse didn’t point out High-quality or Simmons by title, a UF spokeswoman confirmed Tuesday that Sasse was referencing them. The spokeswoman stated Simmons retired from UF as a lecturer in 2019 “and has no lively appointments with the college.”
Sasse wrote that “This was an teacher, not a tenured professor. The person left UF in 2019, and hasn’t been paid right here for 4 years.”
“The First Modification provides everybody the correct to make an abject fool of themselves, and that appears to be what this former teacher is doing right here,” Sasse wrote. “Speech is protected; violence and vandalism are usually not,” he wrote. “We’ll defend everybody’s speech rights right here. However we’ll completely take motion to droop or fireplace anybody within the UF neighborhood who crosses the road with violence or vandalism.”
High-quality didn’t return requests for remark late Tuesday afternoon, and Simmons didn’t reply to an e-mail to her UF handle.
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