Jack, a Florida State University Student Senate president, was removed from office after privately questioning whether the Catholic Student Union should fund BlackLivesMatter.com and the ACLU. Screenshots of his messages were shared without consent, sparking a public pressure campaign that led to a second no-confidence vote removing him 33-3.
Without my permission, another student took screenshots of my messages and sent them to the student senate, who took them out of context and subsequently removed me from my job as student senate president for simply stating well-known Catholic doctrines in a private group chat.
Right, so let's be very specific. What group were you referring to, and what was the belief that was contrary to your religious values?
Yeah, so I'm referring to the Catholic Student Union at Florida State University. What they asked us to financially support was, amongst other organizations, BlackLivesMatter.com and the ACLU. And I just pointed out the fact that BlackLivesMatter.com is opposed to the nuclear family and the ACLU advocates for wider access to abortion. And these views are direct conflict with the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.
That was it?
Yes, sir.
What does it mean, removed from the Florida State University Student Senate?
You—
they took a vote among other senators and you were kicked off?
I essentially— I was, uh, they made a motion to take a vote of no confidence in me as Senate president. Claiming that my Catholic faith was abhorrent and disqualified me from serving.
Wait, they said that?
Essentially, that's what they claimed. They claimed that my beliefs that come from the Catholic— my faith as a Catholic disqualified me from serving as student senate president, and they took a vote to remove me from my job as president, and they succeeded.
So I would like to see the words. Let me go to the Council for ADF here. And speak to Tyson Linekoffer. So Tyson, let me understand here. It seems to me that he got kicked off because he criticized BLM. Am I wrong?
Well, yes, among other things. He didn't want even really criticism. He simply said, hey, you know, if you want to support that, you can, but just be aware you're all Catholics and they, they support views that are contrary to the Catholic Church. So it wasn't even really criticism, it was just pointing out a fact.
Right. But do you think that had he not mentioned BLM, he would have been kicked off? I want to know what really triggered them.
Well, it's always hard to know, Dennis. I don't know. And the reason why we don't know is because there were so many students that came in and talked We talked about this. What happened, Dennis, there was an initial vote that very night. There was a vote to kick him off and it lost 23 to 13. But over the next 2 days, they engaged in a public pressure campaign to get senators to change their vote. And that Friday, 2 days later, they held another vote that was a 7-hour Zoom call where hundreds of students appeared and just castigated Jack for holding Catholic views and stated that he was disqualified for serving as president. And so it's hard to say what they were all saying, but essentially they said, said, you know, your Catholic views disqualify you for president, you should be removed. And they voted 33 to 3 to remove Jack as Senate president.
So Jack, uh, what was it? What was it that did it? Uh, the, uh, it was it the abortion issue or was it the nuclear family issue? I'm going to take your answer in a moment and I'm going to go back to them. By the way, there's a banner for ADF. It's a good example. They're taking this case for free. It's only because people like you and me, and I mean that because I support them too. Go to the ADF banner, please, at my website.
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