Amid an investigation into sexual misconduct allegations against Florida men’s basketball head coach Todd Golden, the UF Student Senate unanimously passed a bill recently calling on the university to be more transparent about sex-based discrimination cases.
But Vision Party officials effectively killed a separate Change-backed bill that, if passed, would have condemned Golden and proposed a university-wide policy barring employees under Title IX investigation from “public-facing events.”
The quashed bill would have also urged UF Athletic Director Scott Stricklin to revise the University Athletic Association's hiring and supervisory practices.
According to two Change senators who attended a Nov. 17 judiciary committee meeting, Sen. Arshan Falasiri (Vision-CLAS) motioned over the bill and the committee never discussed it — an unusual move for the legislative process. The meeting acted as the final judiciary committee meeting of Fall 2024, meaning the bill was effectively avoided and quashed.
Falasiri didn’t explain his decision during the meeting, according to the Change senators. One of those senators, Lucas Nadeau (Change-Keys-Springs), said that Sen. Aaron Rubaii (Vision-Off Campus) privately told him after the meeting that taking a stance on the allegations against Golden before the investigation was complete could have opened the Student Senate up to a defamation suit.
After The Alligator first reported on the allegations against Golden in November, he wrote in a statement posted to X that he had retained a lawyer to explore a defamation suit but didn’t deny the allegations.
“[Rubaii] didn’t want us to be seen as the bad guys,” Nadeau said. “My big thing is that I wanted that on camera, I wanted that in front of the public, I did not want that to be behind closed doors… You’re supposed to be a public person, we’re supposed to tell UF students why your party’s not hearing this bill, why you’re not allowing it to go forward.”
Sen. Austin Britton (Change-Graduate) — the only Change Party member on the nine-person committee — told The Alligator that Rubaii oversees the recordings of the committee meetings, which are typically reserved for internal review and aren’t posted online. Rubaii did not respond to The Alligator’s request for comment regarding the Nov. 17 recording.
Britton said Falasiri’s move to bury the bill was “egregious” and violated the spirit of regular senate practices.
“Our role is to review all legislation as it comes in,” Britton said. “This sets a very dangerous precedent that judiciary committee can just decide we don’t want to even listen to certain bills.”
Minority Party Leader Max Banach (Change-Engineering), one of the bill’s co-authors, said he considered the possibility of defamation suits and that he reviewed state and federal Title IX cases when writing the bill. To avoid legal consequences, the language used in the bill reflected the demand for collaboration and transparency during ongoing Title IX investigations.
A disclaimer at the top of the bill read: “This document reflects reported allegations and should not be construed as making factual determinations regarding the involved individuals.”
“We were prepared to defend the legislation, [and] they proceeded not to evaluate it in the first place,” Banach said. “The really sad thing is that effectively means the entire piece of legislation was buried in committee.”
Falasiri, Rubaii and President Pro-Tempore Julia Seifer did not respond to requests for an interview or an emailed list of questions about the meeting.
During the same meeting, the judiciary committee approved a companion bill that generally reaffirms UF’s existing Title IX procedures but omits references to Golden. Change and Vision senators unanimously passed the companion bill in a full senate meeting two days later.
Reached on Jan. 9 through UF spokesperson Steve Orlando, the UAA didn’t respond to requests for comment on the Golden investigation or the student senate’s Title IX bill.
Contact Michael Angee at mangee@alligator.org. Follow him on X @michaelangee
