A group of mostly disabled vets on retreat at a Panama City, Florida resort were set upon by members of the University of Florida chapter of Zeta Beta Tau fraternity, who spat on the vets and took some American flags.  The attackers subsequently urinated on Old Glory.

Cope said Zeta Beta Tau students picked on the veterans, spit on them and their service dogs, and urinated on American flags.

“In all of my years, I’ve never seen such debauchery and disrespect,” Cope said.

Cope also said the women accompanying the men were equally as bad.

According to Panama City Beach Police, officers were not called, and there was not an incident report or any arrests.

Janine Sikes, the assistant vice president for media affairs at UF, said UF President W. Kent Fuchs received an email from Linda Cope concerning the incident.

Cope then received an email apology from Fuchs on Wednesday.

“I want to make clear that I am deeply sorry for the affront that our students may have caused,” Fuchs wrote in the email. “I want to assure you that it is not representative of our students or our university, and we will make every effort to learn more, take appropriate action and prevent similar incidents from occurring again.”

“The University of Florida is extremely concerned about allegations, specifically of illegal behavior with our students,” Sikes said. “We’re taking this matter vary seriously and opened an investigation to determined what happened and what we need to do in response.”

Sikes said she is not sure how long the investigation may last.

Executive Director of the National Zeta Beta Tau Laurence A. Bolotin, a University of Florida graduate from 2001, also wrote to Cope, stating Emory, UF and the international headquarters are fully cooperating with investigations and both chapters have placed themselves under suspension.

Frat kids behaving badly is hardly news, but this incident highlights a kind of casual, nauseating disrespect for those who have served that permeates our universities.  Disrespecting the flag on campus has become so commonplace that it barely warrants mention anymore.  Patriotism has been banished from campus as a "dangerous" belief that could lead to "nationalism." 

The apologies from the university president are nice, but perhaps addressing the larger problem of anti-Americanism on campus would be more to the point.  All kinds of "hate speech" is banned at universities except hatred of your own country.  Until that kind of hate speech is recognized and addressed, the rest of it is meaningless.