Stetson Law alumni push for university to revoke Pam Bondi’s honors

By Jasmin Parrado

More than a week after former U.S. attorney general Pam Bondi’s testimony in a Feb. 11 House Judiciary Committee hearing, 384 fellow alumni from Stetson University College of Law signed an open letter urging the institution to denounce her conduct. But after Bondi was ousted on April 2, the coalition has taken its demands a step further.

Signatories now want Stetson to rescind Bondi’s university honors and accolades. They believe the move is crucial to upholding Stetson’s reputation, which hangs in the balance after Bondi’s courtroom conduct and management over the Epstein files sparked a national outcry.

“Pam Bondi doesn’t represent us,” Johnny Bardine, family law attorney and drafter of the open letter, said. “She doesn’t represent the Stetson Law community. She doesn’t represent a single Florida attorney that I know. So, when we see one of our colleagues fall short of our oath, I think it’s incumbent upon us and incumbent upon the institutions to say something about it.”

Florida attorneys and former judges were among the hundreds who signed Bardine’s Feb. 23 open letter to Dean Benjamin Barros regarding the university, which declared “institutional neutrality” over Bondi’s growing infamy, according to Bardine.

Bardine said that his subsequent meeting with Barros in March was unproductive, and Barros’ comments to The Tampa Bay Times on how the institution doesn’t “comment on alumni stuff” were disappointing.

“Their position is one that I find a little antiquated, which is, ‘This is not what universities do, and we are going to rely on this policy of institutional neutrality,’” Bardine said. “What I told the dean in the meeting is that the old ways that may have served us back then aren’t doing it now.”

A spokesperson from Stetson said the institution has no comment to date regarding Bardine’s open letter or updated expectations.

Bardine said he believes that it’s essential for the university to stick to its code of ethics and standards—and Bondi’s actions have far surpassed the textbook examples he recalled of “bad-acting lawyers” who violated legal ethics.

For Bardine, the Feb. 11 hearing highlighted significant allegations, which committee members addressed directly to Bondi, from the Department of Justice redacting suspects’ names—and exposing victims’ identities—to redacting entire pages under her leadership.

Patricia Kemp, former Hillsborough County commissioner and Stetson alumna of 1998, was also a signatory to Bardine’s letter. She said Bondi’s behavior in court that day has left her “sickened and distressed in the deepest way.”

“Here we have the highest attorney in the land—the ranking law enforcement, the attorney general of the United States—and she mocks the rule of law and mocks Congress and has a burn book,” Kemp said.

Kemp said that how Bondi “sneered” at officials like Rep. Jamie Raskin, how she refused to address the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s trafficking crimes and how she treated the discourse on the Epstein files with “contempt,” stunned her.

As a user on Instagram, a social media platform, Kemp saw that others were just as stunned.

“People were horrified, and they were saying on there, ‘Where did she even go to law school?’” Kemp said. “And some people were answering ‘Stetson.’ Then somebody said, ‘Stetson, what’s that? Must be this not-so-serious law school.’”

Kemp recalled how it was disheartening to see users “attacking” her alma mater due to Bondi’s actions, and she had to clarify on some posts that as a Stetson graduate and someone who once worked alongside Bondi, she was shocked.

On the broader scale, “there must be consequences,” Kemp said. She believes Stetson is held to that expectation, especially since Bondi was a recipient of its prestigious Ben Willard award, which recognizes humanitarian achievements by university alumni.

Before Bondi’s 14-month tenure in Trump’s cabinet, the 1990 Stetson graduate was touted in law for making strides as a former child abuse and trafficking litigator and becoming the first female attorney general of Florida.

But Bondi’s status began to sour early into her federal role in February 2025. Five months into her position as U.S. attorney general, a coalition of more than 100 lawyers and former judges filed a 23-page ethics complaint to the Florida Bar.

The complaint is still an “open case,” and David Snyder—Stetson alumnus and professor of communications law at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg—said that Bondi’s behavior still deserves a fair and formal review before anything else.

“That is a process that involves protection for her rights of due process and also involves an examination of her conduct by neutral actors—beginning with a grievance committee and taking it all the way to the Florida Supreme Court—to look at objectively whether she has behaved ethically or not,” Snyder said. “And I believe that should be carried all the way through.”

Snyder believes Stetson leadership, regardless of what the Florida Bar decides, shouldn’t “go back and reverse what they did in the past,” as Bondi’s recent conduct doesn’t negate the honors and status she earned prior.

“Unless the Florida Bar determines that she violated the Rules of Professional Conduct, I think that this is a matter of opinion, and Stetson should not take the opinion of one set of alumni over the opinion of other sets of alumni,” Snyder said. “And I can assure you that there are many alumni from Stetson who still think that General Bondi walks on water.”

Though Snyder said he has no knowledge or subsequent opinion yet of Bondi’s conduct by code, if signatories like retired Supreme Court Justice Peggy Quince—whom he knows personally and regards highly—joined the coalition that petitioned the Bar, there’s “fire behind the smoke.”

Personally, Snyder thinks there is valid cause for concern over Bondi’s manners toward other public officials.

“I think she’s been disrespectful and dissembling and unnecessarily ad hominem in her attacks in her testimony to Congress,” Snyder said. “I have personally witnessed that, and I find it distasteful—if not unethical.”

As of this month, Bondi faces threats of contempt of court for defying a subpoena issued for a scheduled House Oversight Committee deposition on April 14, which was set to further investigate the DOJ’s delayed release and handling of the Epstein files.

As national developments on Bondi continue to surface, Bardine said the coalition’s initiative back home is as strong as ever.

“There’s a lot of gas left in the tank, and we’re not gonna roll over just because she was terminated as attorney general or that the school’s not responding like we want,” Bardine said. “We’re committed to this effort, and we’re gonna move forward and escalate it how we need to.”