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FIU moves to discipline 7 students for 'indoor' silent protest on immigration policies

WLRN Public Media |<br>By<br>Daniel Rivero

Published July 1, 2026 at 7:18 PM EDT

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Listen &bull; 1:31

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FIU ICEbreakers

FIU students protesting the school's working arrangements with ICE are facing disciplinary charges for expressing themselves 'indoors.'

In a move that students and their attorney allege is a gross violation of the First Amendment, Florida International University is moving forward with disciplinary actions against seven students who participated in a silent protest at a campus event in March.<br>The students this week were given a written reprimand, and are being ordered to record videos about FIU policies they allegedly violated.<br>They told WLRN they worry the videos could force them to express opinions they do not agree with.<br>The basic facts of the case are undisputed: A group of students sat in the audience while FIU President Jeanette Nuñez held an on-campus event March 13 with former Major League Baseball star Alex Rodriguez. About a half hour into the program, students stood up and unveiled shirts that said “ICE OFF FIU,” and stood silently for a few minutes. They then left the event.<br>FIU maintains that the silent protest violated a campus policy against “expressive activities” taking place indoors.

Carl Juste

Miami Herald

Interim President Jeanette Nuñez, addresses community session attendees as FIU held its Presidential Candidate Community Session inside the Graham Center Ballroom at the Modesto A. Maidique Campus, Miami, Florida on Tuesday, May 21, 2025.

The school’s own policies specify that “expressive activities” include “protests, parades, marches,” as well as the broad, catch-all phrase "exercises in free speech.” University policies further underscore that all those activities are “protected under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.”<br>In addition to a written reprimand for the protest, students are being told they need to each record a two-minute video explaining “what is expected … related to indoor and outdoor areas, and how you will apply what you have learned moving forward,” according to a copy of the disciplinary letters seen by WLRN. The videos must be “original,” and “thoughtful and substantive in response to the prompt.”<br>READ MORE: FIU moves to discipline 7 students for 'indoor' silent protest on immigration policies<br>If FIU Office of Student Conduct and Academic Integrity is not satisfied with the video, the office can ask students to re-record the video, the letter specifies.<br>“ I personally was a little bit shocked at the outcome,” Allyson Basden, a third-year political science major and among the seven students reprimanded, told WLRN. “ We're having a moment of realization that the school isn't necessarily on our side as students as much as we would like to think.”<br>The group intended to protest FIU’s voluntary collaboration with immigration enforcement on campus. After months of trying to meet with Nuñez to voice concerns with the policy, students said they felt they had no other outlet through which they could voice their concerns to her.<br>FIU defends punishment<br>FIU spokesperson Madeline Baró told WLRN that its policies are in accordance with the First Amendment along with Florida law.<br>"FIU applies its rules prohibiting protests and demonstrations in university buildings consistently, regardless of viewpoint. This ensures that classes, research, and academic spaces can function without interference or disruption," Baró wrote in an email to WLRN. "The University allows protests and demonstrations in outdoor areas, giving people a meaningful way to share their views, just not inside university lecture halls, labs, offices, or residence halls."<br>The case has striking resemblance to the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case called Tinker v. Des Moines. Back in 1965, high school students in Iowa wore black armbands to protest the Vietnam War after the school threatened to suspend any students who did so. Five students who wore the armbands were suspended.<br>The resulting U.S. Supreme Court case found that students do not “shed their constitutional right to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.” So long as students expressing themselves did not disrupt school functions, schools could not ban that expression. The Supreme Court called it an issue of “pure speech.”<br>An internal email from an FIU staffer — included in evidence presented in the case — told investigators that the silent protest “did not disrupt the...