Shari Dunn Qualified
Qualified at the Intersection
Free speech for fascists, silence for scholars. Florida shows us what the end of freedom looks like.
3
0:00
-8:13

Free speech for fascists, silence for scholars. Florida shows us what the end of freedom looks like.

White Nationalism Wins Awards, Black Scholars Get Silenced: The End of the 2nd Reconstruction is here.
3

At the University of Florida, one of the most prestigious law schools in the South, a self-described white nationalist law student, Preston Damsky, was awarded top academic honors for a paper where, according to the New York Times, he “argued for the removal of voting rights protections for nonwhites, and the issuance of shoot-to-kill orders against ‘criminal infiltrators at the border.’” He described the demographic shifts in the United States as a “terrible crime” and declared, “White people…cannot be expected to meekly swallow this demographic assault on their sovereignty.” 1 In other words, he promoted the “great replacement theory” that is currently effectively the policy of the United States Government.

What did Mr. Damsky get for this?

A prize.

A book award, designating him as the best student in a federal judge’s seminar class.

He wasn’t disciplined. He was celebrated.

There are moments in history when we look back and say: This is where the veil dropped, this is one of them. ’

The federal judge who taught the class, a Trump appointee and member of the Federalist Society, gave Damsky the highest academic honor in the course. When questioned, the law school cited the principles of “institutional neutrality” and “viewpoint diversity.”

Really, because if that’s the case, why did this happen?

Professor Carliss Chatman, who is Black and who merely wanted to teach a class titled “Race, Entrepreneurship and Inequality,” was told she had to rename her course to remove the word “race.” As she put it:

“I just find it fascinating that this student can write an article, a series of articles that are essentially manifestoes, and that’s free speech…but my class can’t be called ‘Race, Entrepreneurship and Inequality.’”2

This is not about free speech. It’s about power. It’s about silencing truth and uplifting white nationalist lies in the name of “neutrality.” I put this all on the plane as “color-blindness” and “fairness,” all of which are used to obfuscate the promotion of white supremacy.

Anti-Semitism By Any Other Name?


According to the New York Times, Preston Damsky, writing on social media, has said that:

Jewish people, “the common enemy of humanity,” and that they should be “abolished by any means necessary.”


He praised Hitler.


He argued that Black and brown Americans should be given a decade to leave the country.


He said, explicitly, that if the courts don’t build a white ethnostate, then it will be accomplished “not by the careful balance of the scales of justice, but by the gruesome slashing of her sword.”3

That is a violent threat of a modern Civil War, the type of violence that gave rise to the KKK as Reconstruction ended.

The university’s response? Silence. Only when the public became aware of these social media posts did the school finally suspend him. But the award? That still stands. The paper? Still graded.

The message? Crystal clear and reinforced by the Trump administration’s ICE Raids, Executive Orders, and Federal Policy.

Pardoxically, or maybe the right word is hypocritically, the political right is clutching pearls over antisemitism on Ivy League campuses, but not because they care about the safety of Jewish students, but because it gives them an excuse to dismantle liberal institutions. Harvard is dragged through every public hearing and Congressional subpoena, but there is no such scrutiny for the University of Florida.

Why?

Because the goal isn’t protecting Jewish people. It’s about silencing dissent. It’s about shattering the intellectual foundation of liberalism. If you're looking for consistency, you're missing the point. This isn’t about safety. It’s about supremacy.

And then there’s this. Donald Trump, posting on Truth Social, wrote:

“Did I hear Former President Medvedev, from Russia, casually throwing around the 'N word' (Nuclear!). The 'N word' should not be treated so casually.”4

Let that sink in. Donald Trump, a man who has used racism as a political tool for decades, is now branding the word “nuclear” as “the N word.” A known racial slur was co-opted and erased to serve his political theater. Our pain and history is a effing joke. It’s grotesque, dangerous, and strategic.

They want us confused. They want us numb. They want to turn the most hateful, destructive language into “scholarship” while reframing real histories of race, colonization, and genocide as “divisive.”

That’s how the first Reconstruction ended.

We’re watching the second one collapse.

If you're serious about defending truth, equity, and scholarship, now is the time to speak up. This isn't just an academic debate. This is a battle over who gets to define America. Call the University of Florida Law School and inquire as to why this has been allowed and why “RACE” can’t be in the title of a class, but threats of violence against Black and Jewish people are “institutional neutrality” and “viewpoint diversity.”

Do you know anyone considering attending the University of Florida? Tell them, this is NOT a safe place to go.

Subscribe and share this issue of Qualified: At the Intersection—where we unmask the motives behind the madness.

Shari Dunn Qualified is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

1

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/21/us/white-supremacist-university-of-florida-paper.html

2

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/21/us/white-supremacist-university-of-florida-paper.html

3

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/21/us/white-supremacist-university-of-florida-paper.html

4

https://www.yahoo.com/news/losers-trump-attacked-media-made-202858277.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAHO1zk8JD9zNj-qAQ2dZNm59NKjExkGPwZvERidAZwIIZ4IzYbSSVi2dtRVT2bxhLnZXh22G0NxZs4-Rg0WFztL-bbZo_EqfBkP-TveRW1-_N0VMouxesc5FJoOH6O7ETGXNPH11vBZGhc51iyA89IlNPFs6wmG3F8iT2HsGzLhR

Discussion about this episode

User's avatar