MIAMI (WSVN) - 4 Florida International University students continue their argument in court Thursday that the university violated their First Amendment rights after an alleged racist group chat led to their suspension or expulsion.
A federal judge will determine if FIU had the legal authority to discipline the students for messages exchanged in a private chat, or whether the sanctions crossed the constitutional limits on a public university’s power to regulate expression.
The university said the racist and violent texts crossed a line, and other FIU students said they felt unsafe after seeing the messages.
The Miami Herald obtained leaks from the group chat and made them public in an article in March.
One member of the group chat described the conversation as “Nazi heaven”.
Throughout the two weeks of chat logs between September and October of 2025, participants “used variations of the N-word more than 400 times, regularly described women as “whores”, used slurs to talk about Jewish and gay people and mused about Hitler’s politics,” according to the Herald.
The chat was started in the fall of 2025 by the secretary of the Miami-Dade County Republican Party, who is a law student at FIU.
It also included FIU’s Turning Point USA chapter president and the former College Republicans recruitment chair.
Months after the messages were obtained and FIU gave their punishment, the students are suing and defending their words in court.
During the first day of the trial on Wednesday, one of the four students was questioned, saying, according to the Herald, “‘In this context, Yes,’ Dariel Gonzalez answered when questioned about whether a message advocating the beheading of because of their race was funny. ‘If you just see this by itself, then yeah, it looks horrible,’ Gonzalez said. ‘But if you see it within the context, it’s perfectly fine.'”
The messages sparked bipartisan outrage.
In a statement, the Republican Party of Florida said,
“The Republican Party of Florida consistently stands against racism, antisemitism and bigotry in all its hateful forms of expression…”
As for the Democratic Party of Florida, Chair Nikki Reed said in part, “Reading words filled with such extreme hate and rhetoric made me feel physically ill.”
It is unclear if the judge will make their ruling today, but the second and final day of the trial started Thursday at 9 a.m.
Copyright 2026 Sunbeam Television Corp. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.