A former Miami Republican Party official has filed a lawsuit to stop Florida International University from probing into his involvement in an antisemitic and homophobic online group chat with fellow students.
In the action filed last month in federal court in Miami, Abel Carvajal claimed “his speech in the group chat is protected under the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment. Carvajal alleged that any disciplinary actions FIU pursues against him would be viewpoint-based discrimination,” Reuters reported.
Abel Alexander Carvajal
Carvajal, also an FIU law student, launched the WhatsApp group chat called “Uber Retards Yapping, Inc.,” in which the Miami Herald and The Floridian newspapers documented more than 200 uses of the N-word, multiple references to women as “whores,” slurs about Jews and gay people and admiration for the politics of Adolf Hitler.
The Herald said it found Carvajal participating in the chat on multiple occasions and he took no action to shut it down. Carvajal was secretary of the Miami-Dade GOP at the time but resigned as the organization reconsidered his role amid the fallout.
According to Reuters, his lawsuit said FIU’s “baseless disciplinary proceedings chill plaintiff’s speech,” while his attorney described the university’s actions as “absurd, totalitarian and blatantly illegal.”
Meanwhile, the University of Florida deactivated its College Republicans chapter after the club’s parent organization alerted the school to a photo of a student leader performing a Nazi salute.
The university made the announcement on social media after being informed by the Florida Federation of Republicans it already had disbanded the UF chapter because some “members engaged in a pattern of conduct that violated its rules and values, including a recent antisemitic gesture.”
The federation also requested the university deactivate the chapter as a new UF group with new leaders. In a post on X, the university said it would comply.
“The University of Florida has emphatically supported its Jewish community and remains committed to preventing and addressing antisemitism and other forms of discrimination and harassment that are threatening and disruptive to our students and to the teaching, research and expressive activities of the campus community,” a statement said.
But The Gainesville Sun reported the UF chapter said it is affiliated not with the Florida Federation of Republicans but with a different organization, College Republicans of America. “Both of those organizations accused the FFCR of lying to UF to get the club disbanded.”
The student-run Independent Florida Alligator reported members of the UF College Republicans met on campus 10 days after the deactivation. They were joined by members of the Patriot Coalition, another conservative student group.
“I’m sure we can all find it offensive and stupid, to say the least. It is still free speech. It is still protected by the First Amendment.”
UFCR President Michael Andre opened the meeting by describing the Nazi salute photo as “scandalous” and “provocative,” according to the Alligator. “I’m sure we can all find it offensive and stupid, to say the least. It is still free speech. It is still protected by the First Amendment.”
He added that the image was created by people who are not members of or controlled by UFCR, and he raised the possibility that the club’s deactivation was tied to its recent hosting of Republican gubernatorial candidate James Fishback to speak on campus.
“I think it would be hard to completely dismiss the timing of this. We don’t want to negate the coincidence,” Andre said.
Fishback responded on social media by pledging support for the club, according to The Sun. “Whether a group is left or right, pro-Palestinian or pro-Israel, religious or secular, we must fully defend their free speech. I will as governor.”
Some Florida Republican leaders called the deactivation an example of “cancel culture” while Lake County Commissioner Anthony Sabatini threatened to sue the university, the newspaper said.
“This is completely illegal — I spoke with @UFCR leadership & I will be filing a First Amendment retaliation lawsuit under Section 1983 Monday morning against @UF seeking an injunction. UF has engaged in enormous viewpoint discrimination over the past year & it must be stopped NOW.”
Kai Schwemmer
Another young Republican undergoing scrutiny is Kai Schwemmer, the new political director of College Republicans of America.
According to a report by The Guardian, Schwemmer is known for his livestreamed and written antisemitic, homophobic, racist and sexist statements, including support for slavery and opposition to abortion. Some have described him as a “Mormon Nick Fuentes,” in reference to the Christian nationalist political commentator.
But Schwemmer said a recent two-year Mormon mission to Argentina led him to reevaluate his values and to reject his bigoted views. Some are skeptical.
“Any time someone claims they have left the movement, you need to watch them closely to see if their actions match their rhetoric, and if they are being sincere,” said Jeff Tischauser, a senior research analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center, in The Guardian report. “It does not seem like Kai Schwemmer is being sincere.”
For one, he accepted an appointment with College Republicans of America in March. The group is one of four competing college Republican groups vying for MAGA bragging rights, The Guardian explained.
“His history as a broadcaster includes streams on Cozy.tv, a platform founded by Fuentes after bans from mainstream platforms, and his previous alignment with Fuentes’s far-right ‘groyper’ movement drew immediate condemnation from Jewish advocacy organizations.”
On one streaming platform, Schwemmer “walks a user through a sequence of antisemitic leading questions on the Omegle platform before directing her to Fuentes’s streaming site. In others, he claims gay men are ‘weaponizing’ gyms ‘to give you AIDS’ and celebrates a DNA test he says proved “I’m 0% Jewish.”
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