In Tampa, Florida, the boundaries between hate speech and free expression are under scrutiny following an incident at the University of South Florida. On Tuesday, students reported experiencing harassment on campus.
A Street Preacher confronted the students, asking, “You guys don’t have bombs on you, do you?… Spit on Muhammad’s name, he is a scumbag, just like all you Muslim terrorists,” directly targeting students who were engaged in prayer.
Sajid Khan, one of the students participating in the prayer, recounted the experience: “As we continued to pray, they kept getting in our faces, screaming, and preaching at us. They hurled xenophobic, bigoted, racist, and Islamophobic remarks. The comments were just wrong—blatantly racist.”
In defense, the Street Preachers released a statement asserting, “We simply preached our message about Jesus Christ and spoke against the teachings of Islam—an action fully protected by the Constitution as a right of every American.”
But does free speech ever cross the line?
“Is it a problem or is it our country? Right. We have a country where we invite free expression, we invite free speech,” said Attorney Anthony Rickman. “As bad as they were, they didn’t try to attack anybody. The body of their crime is the hateful things that they said in a public space. And the question is: Were they allowed to be there? Were they on notice that they could be there? And did their actions amount to a crime in the state of Florida?”
Rickman said if the state prosecutors find a crime, only then could it possibly be upgraded to a hate crime based on the Street Preachers bias against the students’ religion.
In the videos, you can see the men appear to mock the religion by appropriating Islamic religious attire. They set up signs and a podium in front of where the group was praying.
“They went there with premeditated design,” Rickman said. “When the state looks at it, they’re going to look to the intent of these individuals to engage in the conduct that [was] potentially disorderly or engage in that trespass.”
The university said they will trespass the Street Preachers. They responded in a statement saying, “A public university cannot issue a trespass order as punishment for the content of speech, nor can it do so after the fact simply to satisfy a complaint. That would be a clear violation of both the First Amendment and Florida’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act.”
The state attorney’s office will have a lot to consider if they decide to charge them. Friday, the Council on American Islamic Relations plans to hold a press conference to address this situation.
