A federal district judge in Miami, Florida, has issued a preliminary injunction against Florida International University’s decision to discipline a group of students who wore anti-ICE T-shirts and stood in protest at an indoor event at the school.
The case had received attention outside of Florida before the ruling by the district court since it touches on several landmark Supreme Court decisions and rulings within the Eleventh Circuit.
As a public university, Florida International University (FIU) maintains policies and regulations that govern student conduct. It has argued that the students violated FIU Regulation 110(3), which pertains to student speech indoors. Under the policy, students can be held responsible for disrupting indoor university activities by undertaking actions such as “protests, parades, marches, picketing, demonstrations, and other similar expressive activities.”
On August 23, 2026, in ICEbreakers v. Nunez, Judge Jacqueline Becerra from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida disagreed with the university’s position and ruled that the FIU students were likely to succeed in their challenge to regulations restricting certain speech on campus.
The Incident at the Event
On March 13, 2026, according to the court’s record, FIU President Jeanette M. Nuñez was interviewing former baseball player Alex Rodriguez at an on-campus indoor event. The ICEBreakers is a student-led organization opposing FIU’s agreement to deputize the FIU police department with the powers of federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.
An estimated 15 ICEBreakers members were in the audience at the event. The members were wearing T-shirts that said, “ICE OFF FIU.” During the interview event, seven members of the group stood up and faced the audience in a silent protest that lasted between one-to-three minutes. The court noted that no one at the event “complained or otherwise raised any concern regarding Plaintiffs’ conduct.” The students left the event, and, after an interaction with FIU police officers, they left the area.
According to the court, “based on the evidence submitted to date, it does not appear that any Plaintiff, or anyone else wearing an ICE OFF FIU’ T-shirt, spoke or did anything other than sit, stand, and walk.”
The matter was referred to FIU’s Office of Student Conduct & Academic Integrity. On April 7, 2026, the office issued letters to the students who stood, charging them with misconduct for failing to comply with FIU Regulation 110, Section 3.
After meeting with officials and attending a hearing, the students were charged with failing to comply with Regulation 110(3). They received a written reprimand, and each were directed to submit a video reflection “explaining your understanding of FIU Regulation 110, what is expected under FIU Regulation 110 related to indoor and outdoor areas, and how you will apply what you have learned moving forward.”
The students appealed the decision within FIU and the appeal was denied. FIU then required students to submit video reflections by September 4, 2026, or FIU would place a “student conduct hold” on their academic records, blocking their ability to register for classes, and obtain financial aid, transcripts, a diploma, or copies of any other academic records.
On August 11, 2026, the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida filed a lawsuit on behalf of the students.
The Legal Precedents
In her opinion, Judge Becerra discussed two Supreme Court decisions. The Court has held since the late 1960s that public school officials can regulate student protests that they view “materially and substantially interfere with the requirements of appropriate discipline in the operation of the school.” But not all protests can be regulated by schools, especially those that express “pure speech.”
The foundational case for public secondary schools and universities is Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969). In December 1965, at the height of the Vietnam War, three students, including Mary Beth Tinker, a 13-year-old student at Warren Harding Junior High School in Des Moines, Iowa, wore black armbands to school to protest the war. They were all suspended.
In his 7-2 majority opinion, Justice Abe Fortas said, “First Amendment rights, applied in light of the special characteristics of the school environment, are available to teachers and students. It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”
In 2021, the Supreme Court expanded its holding on student speech in Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L., where the justices held that a student’s off-campus Snapchat outburst did not warrant a suspension, even though it targeted a school-related activity that upset students at school.
The Judge’s Ruling
Becerra cited the Tinker precedent as guiding her decision. “Any discussion of a student’s freedom of speech in public schools certainly begins, and perhaps ends, with the Supreme Court’s decision in Tinker,” she wrote. “The Tinker standard still governs: student speech cannot be restrained unless it ‘materially disrupts’ or ‘involves substantial disorder or invasion of the rights of others.’”
She also pointed to Mahanoy as relevant. “The Court explained [in Mahanoy] that the ‘alleged disturbance’—five to ten minutes of discussion during an algebra class and some cheerleaders being ‘upset’ about the posts—did ‘not meet Tinker’s demanding standard, which requires ‘more than a mere desire to avoid the discomfort and unpleasantness that always accompany an unpopular viewpoint.’”
“For at least 60 years, the standard has been the same: student speech cannot be curtailed unless it materially disrupts the educational mission or involves substantial disorder or invasion of the rights of others,” Becerra reasoned as applying the precedents to her case.
“At this stage, Plaintiffs are substantially likely to prevail on their claim that Regulation 110(3) impermissibly prohibits Constitutionally protected speech by failing to limit its prohibition to speech that causes substantial disruption,” she determined.
Becerra pointed to language in Regulation 110(3) which states that “[t]o protect health, safety, and welfare and prevent disruption of University activities, protests, parades, marches, picketing, demonstrations, and other similar expressive activities are prohibited inside University building.” The FIU definition of "expressive activities” indoors elsewhere in its policy, she said, includes activities that are “exercises of free speech … protected under the First Amendment.”
Becerra held that Regulation 110(3) prohibited First Amendment expressive activities “regardless of whether they cause any disruption.” She also rejected FIU’s argument that the students were asserting “a nearly unlimited right to protest on government property.” Becerra wrote that Tinker requires “that restrictions on student speech be limited to those activities and expressions that cause material disruption. That is hardly a ‘nearly unlimited’ right; it is simply the law.”
Becerra also rejected claims from FIU that the “university (arguably all of it) is a limited public forum” subject to appropriate time, place and manner restrictions. “Here, FIU relies on its right to create rules to maintain order and decorum,” she noted. “In doing so, it invites the Court to conduct an analysis of the type of public forum at issue in order to assess whether Regulation 110(3) is valid.”
“The problem with FIU’s invitation is that it points the Court down a road not taken in any school speech case either by the Supreme Court or the Eleventh Circuit,” she noted.
For now, FIU has said it will comply with the injunction as it considers its options.
“FIU values freedom of expression and supports an environment that fosters civil discourse and the respectful exchange of ideas. At the same time, the university's responsibility is to maintain campus operations, support its educational mission, and ensure safety and access for all members of the university community. As this matter is pending litigation, we cannot comment further. We will comply with the court's order while considering our legal options,” it told CBS News.
Scott Bomboy is the editor in chief of the National Constitution Center.
