FIU Investigates Leaked Racist GOP Student Chat

Florida International University announced Thursday that law enforcement agencies are investigating a leaked WhatsApp group chat from last fall, in which prominent members of the Miami-Dade County Republican Party and conservative student leaders exchanged racist, antisemitic and homophobic messages. The chat, which began in September and lasted about two and a half weeks, involved discussions interspersed with slurs and violent rhetoric, according to logs obtained by the Miami Herald.

The group was created by Abel Carvajal, a 23-year-old law student at FIU and secretary of the Miami-Dade County Republican Party, primarily for conservative students. Participants included Ian Valdes, then-president of FIU's Turning Point USA chapter; Dariel Gonzalez, recruitment chair of the College Republicans at the time; and William Bejerano, who had attempted to start a pro-life group at Miami Dade College. The Herald reported that the chat contained more than 400 uses of a racial slur against Black people, along with derogatory terms for Jewish and gay individuals, and misogynistic references to women.

Bejerano posted a lengthy message outlining dozens of acts of extreme violence against...