The Floriduh School That Gave a Nazi an Award and Called It Merit
🧑🏻⚖️🚨 A law student at the University of Florida—who publicly promoted white nationalist views, argued that Black Americans should not be allowed to vote, and tweeted that Jewish people should be “abolished by any means necessary”—was not expelled, was not failed, was not even reported. He was awarded. By a federal judge. For writing a law school paper that declared the U.S. Constitution applies only to white people.
The professor behind that decision? Judge John L. Badalamenti, a Trump appointee. Badalamenti isn’t just a random law professor who made a questionable grading decision—he’s a federal judge for life, appointed by Donald Trump in 2020 and confirmed by a GOP-controlled Senate. Before that, he served as a Florida appellate judge with deep ties to the Federalist Society, the conservative legal network that helped reshape the Supreme Court.
This isn’t some out-of-touch academic; this is a man who holds real judicial power, whose values now carry the weight of federal authority. And if this is how he evaluates merit—rewarding a law student who advocates disenfranchisement, racial supremacy, and antisemitic violence—then it raises urgent, unavoidable questions about how he interprets justice from the bench.
He taught the seminar, read the paper, graded it, and handed the student a prize supposedly reserved for the “top student” in the class. Either he didn’t read it closely, or worse, he did—and graded it highly anyway. There is no version of this story where the outcome isn’t horrifying. Either this level of overt hate was rewarded due to negligence, or it was rewarded on purpose.
The student, whose name has not been officially released in the university’s statements but has been widely identified in news reporting, didn’t just privately hold controversial views. He published them. He tweeted them. He argued in a paper submitted for academic credit that the Constitution should exclude non-white Americans. And he got an A. He got a prize. He got honored—while calling for the eradication of Jews.
Let’s stop pretending this is an isolated incident. Trump’s judicial pipeline didn’t just stack courts—it poured raw sewage into the educational institutions that feed them. The far right’s long game has always involved infiltrating law schools, clerkships, and judicial internships with people who don’t believe in equal rights or multiracial democracy. That strategy isn’t theoretical anymore. It’s getting awards.
Even after the student’s extremist posts were brought to light, there was no immediate, sweeping condemnation from the federal bench. The university did eventually rescind the award—but only after public pressure forced their hand. Why was that pressure even necessary? Why wasn’t a law student calling for genocide treated as a moral emergency from the beginning?
Academic freedom is not a license to promote fascism in legal form. There is a difference between controversial ideas and outright eliminationist rhetoric. This wasn’t constitutional interpretation—it was rhetorical hate speech dressed in legalese. The fact that it sailed through a seminar led by a federal judge says less about “freedom of thought” and more about the rotting ethical infrastructure within elite institutions.
If the next generation of judges is being groomed by people who see this as intellectually valid, we’re not just losing the courts—we’re losing the soul of the law itself. And if we keep acting surprised every time a Nazi gets an A+ from a Trump appointee, then maybe we haven’t been paying attention at all.
🗽🕊️ If this work speaks to you, and you’re in a place to help, I’d be incredibly grateful. I do this between parenting, long shifts, and sheer exhaustion—just trying to keep a light on in dark times. If you can share, subscribe, or chip in anything, it would honestly mean the world. Thank you for even thinking about it.
https://substack.com/@brentmolnar
#VoiceOfReason #NoNazisInLawSchool #DemocracyUnderSiege #JudicialCorruption #UFScandal #TrumpJudges #FightFascism
