Refusing to Teach "the South"

Investigation Committee that the University of South Florida (USF) acted in "a pattern of softness on communism," assigned "obscene course reading materials," expressed "anti-religious sentiments," and allowed "rampant homosexuality perpetrated by faculty, staff, and students."Also known as the Johns Committee, for which Hawes served as chief legal counsel, this legislative body was a virtually unregulated, veritable "police force," a sentiment expressed by Florida state representative Robert E. Knowles that same year.As a result of this one report, USF fired two professors and expelled dozens of students.The Johns Committee "tormented Florida education for nearly a decade."After losing in its efforts to dismantle the Florida branch of the NAACP in a bid to halt the pace of desegregation, the committee had shifted its focus to sexual minorities and higher education.I learned