It only took three weeks for a group chat for conservative students at Florida International University (FIU) to become a place where participants eagerly used racist slurs, prompting widespread condemnation from community leaders.

Abel Alexander Carvajal, secretary of Miami-Dade county’s Republican party and a student at FIU’s College of Law, reportedly started the chat after the killing of Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, in September 2025.

But on Wednesday, the Miami Herald published leaked WhatsApp conversations in which the college Republicans made racist, sexist, antisemitic and homophobic comments, including variations of the N-word used more than 400 times. Knowledge of the chat’s existence was revealed on the same day that Republican lawmakers in Florida pushed forward a bill to rename a one-mile stretch of road alongside FIU in honor of Kirk.

William Bejerano, who the Herald noted once tried to start an anti-abortion group at Miami Dade College, was the most prolific user of the N-word. Using the slur, Bejerano called for dozens of acts of extreme violence against Black people, including crucifying, beheading and dissecting.

Dariel Gonzalez, then the College Republicans’ recruitment chair, who has recently applied to become a GOP committee member, responded to the calls for violence by saying: “How edgy.” He repeatedly used “colored” to describe Black people, including writing: “Ew you had colored professors?!” and “Avoid the coloreds like the plague,” according to the Herald.

Carvajal, who was appointed to a two-year role on the city of Hialeah’s planning and zoning board earlier this year, confirmed to the paper that the group chat was his doing, but he denied knowledge of the problematic comments until the publication contacted him about its logs last week.

“It’s been five months since this was sent and this is the first time I’ve seen this message,” Carvajal told the Herald.

“I guess to an extent, I bear some responsibility, cause I created a chat. But if I had seen this at the moment, I would have removed [Bejerano] from the chat. I probably would have even blocked his number.”

The Herald found that Carvajal had deleted 14 messages sent by other participants in the chat and 42 of his own messages before the publication obtained the chat’s logs.

He also participated in some of the racist discussions. While referring to a Black student who allegedly left FIU’s College Republicans after a member of the group “called her a [N-word]”, the Floridian reported that Carvajal wrote: “Why didn’t miggress leave?” Elsewhere in the chat, the publication reported that Carvajal used “Miggress”, “Migglet” and “Migger” to refer to Black women, Black children and Black people, in general.

At one point, Gonzalez wrote: “You can fuck all the [K-word, a slur for Jewish people] you want. Just don’t marry them and procreate.”

Ian Valdes, the Turning Point USA FIU chapter president, responded, “I would def not marry a Jew,” before changing the group chat’s name from “Uber [R-word slur for disabled people] Yapping” to “Gooning in Agartha”. “Gooning” is a gen-Z slang term for male masturbation, while “Agartha” is a mythical white civilization promoted by Heinrich Himmler, one of the most powerful leaders in Nazi Germany next to Hitler.

Gonzalez reportedly described Agartha to the group chat as “Nazi heaven sort of”.

Kevin Cooper, the first Jewish chair of the Miami Dade Republican party, condemned the group chat in a statement published to X and called for Carvajal’s resignation.

“The majority of our board voted to request Carvajal’s resignation. We have commenced removal proceedings and look forward to resolution from the Republican Party of Florida,” he wrote.

That call was echoed by Juan Porras, a Republican state representative and Miami-Dade GOP state committee member, who said in a statement: “Leadership carries responsibility. When someone in a leadership role engages in this kind of behavior, it damages the trust placed in our party by voters across Florida. For that reason, I am asking the Miami Dade Republican party secretary to step down from this position.”

In a joint statement, Florida Republican state senators Alexis Calatayud, Ileana Garcia and Ana Maria Rodriguez denounced the chats and called for the expulsion from party leadership of its participants.

“The individuals in the group chat have exposed how profoundly misaligned their beliefs are to the views of the Republican party of Florida,” their statement said. “We call for the immediate expulsion of the individuals disseminating from any level of leadership of the Miami-Dade Republican Party … We will not tolerate bigotry or discrimination.”

Multiple leaked group chats from young Republicans have created controversy in recent years.

Last year, Politico published messages from a group chat of more than 100 conservatives across the country in which users also made racist and antisemitic comments. In 2022, a Young Republican group chat from North Dakota was revealed as a cesspool of homophobic and antisemitic rhetoric.

The legalization of fixed-odds wagering is part of a comprehensive gaming and wagering bill filed March 4 with the Kentucky House of Representatives. 

Rep. Matt Koch, a Republican from Paris, and Rep. Michael Meredith, a Republican from Oakland, are sponsors of HB 904, which creates a form of betting that sets the payout odds at the time a wager is placed and those odds do not change.

Wagering on horse racing in Kentucky is now only pari-mutuel, the traditional form for the sport in which gamblers bet against each other and odds are determined based on how much is wagered on a specific bet—for example, win, place, or show—compared with the total money in the wagering pool.

With pari-mutuel wagering, the odds change as money enters the pool and has become a sore spot with many gamblers because these changes can be dramatic due to the introduction of computer-assisted wagering. CAW betting is a form of wagering that uses computer algorithms to formulate selections and then push those bets through to pari-mutuel pools, up to six bets per second in the final minute before pools are closed. This last-minute deluge of wagers can cause a horse’s odds to fall, for example, from 8-1 as they are loading into the gate to 3-1 as the race unfolds and the tote system catches up with calculating the late wagers.

Offering fixed odds is seen as one solution and has already been adopted in New Jersey, Colorado, and in West Virginia last April.

“This basically puts it in hands of the tracks to test the waters,” said Koch, who is the co-founder of Shawhan Place in Bourbon County. “As the gambling market continues to expand, we’re exploring ways to give tracks the flexibility to introduce new and engaging products. For many who enjoy wagering, consistency is key. They want the confidence of knowing a horse’s odds will remain steady throughout the race, allowing them to enjoy the experience to the fullest. However, we recognize the uncertainty that a new product brings and want to be particularly mindful of its potential impact.”

As part of the legalization of fixed-odds wagering, the bill creates a “purse stabilization fund” that will be supported by excise taxes and fees from fixed-odds wagering. Licensed tracks would pay 15% on the adjusted gross revenue of fixed-odds wagers placed on-track and via advance-deposit wagering websites and mobile applications. This fund will be used to supplement purses at live horse racing meets annually at an amount not to exceed 10% of the fund.

“This is similar to how other states manage the revenue from fixed odds and protects the traditional purse pools,” Koch said.

Additionally, Koch said having outdated totalizator networks contributes to the frustration with CAW, so HB 904 includes a provision for licensed totalizator companies and licensed racetracks to accelerate the adoption of improved technologies for wagering systems and provide “commercially reasonable access to the betting odds for retail bettors by April 1, 2027.”

“Some of these totes are only updating every 30 seconds and that is contributing to the perception and frustration,” he said, referring to bettors seeing late odds changes. “Doing our research, we realize there are things we can do for tracks to update their totes and have those updated odds in seconds. We need to stay on top of the IT and that needs to be an ongoing deal.”

The bill also includes a prohibition against any track or association licensed to conduct horse racing, sports wagering, or fantasy sports being affiliated with or benefiting from any entity that offers prediction market contracts. 

Prediction market operators are a growing concern for the gambling industry because they have expanded from taking wagers on the outcome of future events, such as elections or new events, and are now including sporting events, such as horse racing. The prediction markets defend their business by claiming to take “contracts” and not “wagers.”

The threat of the prediction markets was addressed by Churchill Downs Inc. CEO Bill Carstanjen during a Feb. 26 conference call with investors and analysts and is the subject of a panel discussion this week during the National Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association’s annual conference being held at Oaklawn Park.

READ: Prediction Markets Have the Racing Industry’s Attention

Other provisions of HB 904 include:

• After Nov. 1 of a calendar year, the Kentucky Horse Racing and Gaming Corporation may authorize additional racing dates or make changes to racing dates awarded if requested by a licensed association, supported by the applicable horsemen’s group and “deemed in the best interest of racing.”
• Creates a new section that legalizes and puts the regulation of fantasy contests under the authority of the Kentucky Horse Racing and Gaming Corporation. Fantasy contests are simulated games or contests with an entry fee and awards or prizes established prior to the contest. Participants compete against each other and manage a fictional roster of actual athletes and obtain scores based on real-life performances. If adopted, all fantasy contest operators must be licensed by the state and adhere to regulations that include preventing fraud and money laundering, prevent underage participation, verify customers are geographically located in jurisdictions allowing fantasy contest participation, and comply with state audits and any complaints or allegations of prohibited conduct.
• Sets the legal age to participate in sports betting, fantasy contests, and charitable gaming at 21 but keeps the legal age for betting on horse racing at 18.