Colleges, Universities, and LGBTQ in the Crosshairs in Florida--Again
On May 15, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed three pieces of legislation that will significantly change the operation of the state’s colleges and universities. These laws restrict the teaching of topics related to systemic racism and sexism, expand the power of university boards and presidents to hire and fire professors, limit protections commonly applied to tenured faculty, and defund diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. DeSantis signs 3 bills bringing major change to Florida universities (tampabay.com)
DeSantis also recently signed legislation aimed at the LGBTQ community. Florida law now bans gender-affirming medication or surgery for transsexual minors, allows courts to issue warrants that will take custody of a child who is receiving such care, and prohibits teachers from teaching courses on sexual orientation and gender identity to students up to the eighth grade. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nebraska-abortion-ban-restrictions-gender-affirming-care-younger-than-19-gov-jim-pillen-signs-bill/.
Reactions among educators and LGBTQ individuals have been quick and fierce: Faculty at public colleges and universities speak of a “chilling effect” and the “scary time for education,” and many worry that LGBTQ Floridians increasingly will be bullied and otherwise put in harm’s way. DeSantis' anti-DEI education law has 'chilling' effect in Florida (nbcnews.com) DeSantis signs bills on pronouns, gender care, drag shows and more (msn.com)
This is not the first time educators and LGBTQ individuals have been targeted in the state of Florida. The Florida Legislative Investigation Committee (FLIC), also known as the Johns Committee, more than 50 years ago conducted investigations to ferret out homosexual faculty and staff at the University of Florida, Florida State University, and the University of Southern Florida. Between 1961 and 1963, these investigations resulted in the dismissal of 39 professors and deans, the revocation of teaching certificates of 71 public schools teachers, and the interrogation and expulsion of scores of students for homosexuality. Florida Legislative Investigation Committee - Wikipedia
FLIC’s actions and more importantly its effects on the lives of a small group of educators and their families in Gainesville are brought to stunning life in The Committee by author and teacher Sterling Watson. As a graduate student at the University of Florida in 1969, Watson met professors who had been “harassed by the Committee” and realized “some were permanently scarred.” Watson does not base characters on anyone he knew but shows how typical, ordinary people behave when secrets are exposed and lives are not what they appear to be.
The Committee by Sterling Watson, Paperback | Barnes & Noble® (barnesandnoble.com)
For this author’s review, see: The Committee - Historical Novel Society
The John’s Committee
The Florida Legislature in 1956 formed the Florida Legislative Investigation Committee (FLIC) during the Second Red Scare. (The First Red Scare, or the time of fear and anxiety over the apparent rise of Communism or Socialism in the United States, ran from 1917 to 1920 when labor unions were organizing and populations were moving from rural to industrialized, urban areas. The Second Red Scare began in the early days of the Cold War with Russia and ended roughly in 1954. Also labeled as McCarthyism, the Second Red Scare was linked to U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy who claimed Communists had infiltrated the U.S. government and routinely questioned his political opponents’ loyalty to the country. Red Scare | Definition, U.S. History, & Causes | Britannica https://oxfordre.com/americanhistory/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.001.0001/acrefore-9780199329175-e-6?mediaType=Article.)
FLIC was commonly known as the Johns Committee, named after its first chair, state senator and former acting Florida governor Charley Eugene Johns, and conducted wide-ranging investigations of allegedly subversive activities by academics, civil rights leaders, and suspected Communist organizations.
After failing to find links between Communist groups and civil rights organizations, the committee shifted attention to homosexuals, believed at the time to be threats to national security as well as the sexuality and overall well-being of young people. Florida Legislative Investigation Committee - Wikipedia
While the Johns Committee was not originally authorized to investigate homosexuality on college campuses, it sent an investigator to the University of Florida in secret to track down rumors that homosexuality was linked to subversive activity or racial integration in 1958. (Closet Crusaders)
When given a mandate to continue these investigations in 1961, the Johns Committee moved aggressively, collecting more than 8000 pieces of so-called pornographic paraphernalia, remove students from class and interrogate them, rely on information from unreliable or vindictive sources, conduct and secretly record interviews in motel rooms, set traps for critics, and publish Citizenship in Florida, or the Purple Pamphlet that claimed homosexuality was “a skeleton in the close of society.” (Closet Crusaders). The Johns Committee’s work also extended beyond the actions taken by teachers or students in private to flag “intellectual garbage” in the classroom by such authors as Aldous Huxley, Margaret Mead, and J.D. Salinger. (Closet Crusaders)
The result of a single confrontation between committee investigators and a professor was shattering. Sigismond Diettrich, chair of the University of Florida’s geography department, was summoned by a committee member to a meeting on January 19, 1959. Grilled for nearly 90 minutes about allegations of homosexuality from an informant who had never witnessed any sexual behavior, Diettrich acknowledged encounters with consenting male adults. Two months later, after being summarily dismissed from the faculty, he ingested nearly 100 aspirin tables and planned to jump from the upper floor of a campus building. (Closet Crusaders)
The Committee
A woman’s scream shakes Prof. Tom Stall as it drifts through the open window of his office in the English Department of the University of Florida, Gainesville, in August, 1958. The girl and a small group of students have gathered near the body of fellow professor Jack Leaf, lifeless on the sidewalk in front of Murphree Hall. “Did any of you see him…fall?” Stall asks. “Did you see anyone else up there? ... Did he say anything?”
Stall and others on campus soon discover Leaf’s real name--Red Leaf--and heritage as Native American, and a set of photographs of him and another man in the men’s room of a bus station.
Thus begins Sterling Watson’s novel The Committee in which English professor Stall finds himself caught in the middle--urged to discover whether other male faculty members are engaging in similar behavior to protect “the university, its integrity…its founding principles,” bolster his chances of becoming the next department chair, and at the same time keep the Johns Committee informed.
In the process, Stall witnesses the loss of harmony among academics as members betray, manipulate, and bear false witness, in order to protect their own interests. He and others face the realities of taking actions in the interest of the “greater good” or at minimum the “least offensive” and decide to defy what they believe to be an invasion of privacy or submit in the face of unrelenting pressure.
The question for readers: Is it justified to adopt the tactics of surveillance and confrontation and use them against the interrogators? Or does it mean you’ve succumbed and just become one of them?
The actions taken by the Johns Committee in the 1950s and the Florida legislature of today differ, as do the circumstances surrounding them. Yet the justifications are eerily similar. Sumter Lowry, a prominent anti-Communist, opponent of racial integration, and political candidate from Tampa, more than 50 years ago asked: “Why shouldn’t the people who are paying the bills have control over their state institutions?” (Closet Crusaders)
Before signing the recent bills into law, Gov. DeSantis acknowledged: ”It’s our view that, when the taxpayers are funding these institutions, that we as Floridians — and we as taxpayers — have every right to insist that they are following a mission that is consistent with the best interest of our people in our state. You don’t just get to take taxpayer dollars and do whatever the heck you want to do and think that that’s somehow OK.” DeSantis signs 3 bills bringing major change to Florida universities (tampabay.com)
Present-day legislation is vague and does not specifically call for the creation of a committee to oversee its implementation in schools across the state--at least not yet.
Sources
DeSantis signs 3 bills bringing major change to Florida universities (tampabay.com)
Ron DeSantis signs the so-called 'Don't Say Gay' bill : NPR
What the DeSantis agenda means for higher education in Florida | On Point (wbur.org)
Florida Legislative Investigation Committee - Wikipedia
When Florida had a committee to terrorize gay people - Vox
Red Scare | Definition, U.S. History, & Causes | Britannica
James A. Schnur: Closet Crusaders: The Johns Committee and Homophobia, 1956-1965