Florida HB 383: Involuntary Examinations of Minors

Bill Text

HCR 383 2026

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F L O R I D A H O U S E O F R E P R E S E N T A T I V E S

House Concurrent Resolution 1
A concurrent resolution acknowledging the injustices 2
perpetrated against the targets of the Florida 3
Legislative Investigation Committee between 1956 and 4
1965 and offering a formal and heartfelt apology to 5
those whose lives, well-being, and livelihoods were 6
damaged or destroyed by the activities and public 7
pronouncements of those who served on the committee. 8
9
WHEREAS, following a special session of the Florida 10
Legislature in July 1956, the act establishing the Florida 11
Legislative Investigation Committee became law, and 12
WHEREAS, following its establishment, the committee, in 13
conjunction with Tallahassee police, surveilled, harassed, 14
intimidated, and arrested members of the Inter-Civic Council, 15
students from Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, 16
and other participants in the bus boycott and carpool network 17
that began in May 1956 and continued until December 1956, and 18
WHEREAS, on February 1, 1957, the committee held its first 19
public hearing, questioning Virgil Hawkins, an African-American 20
man who had been seeking admission to the University of Florida 21
College of Law since 1949, as well as National Association for 22
the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) attorneys Francisco 23
Rodriguez and Horace Hill, claiming that the NAACP was violating 24
the law by soliciting plaintiffs for desegregation lawsuits, and 25

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F L O R I D A H O U S E O F R E P R E S E N T A T I V E S

WHEREAS, on February 25, 1957, the committee began public 26
hearings in Miami, demanding that the local NAACP branch 27
surrender all of its records, including membership lists, and 28
claiming that the branch had been infiltrated by current and 29
former communists, and 30
WHEREAS, during 1957 and 1958, the committee devoted itself 31
to besmirching NAACP members as criminals and communist 32
sympathizers in order to slow or halt their efforts to 33
desegregate Florida schools and public spaces, and 34
WHEREAS, in November and December of 1958, the committee's 35
chief investigator began an inquiry into alleged homosexual 36
activity by faculty, staff, and students at the University of 37
Florida in Gainesville; allowed officers of the University of 38
Florida Police Department to entrap and question without legal 39
counsel those suspected of such activity; and threatened and 40
coerced those individuals with a public hearing or perjury 41
charges into confessing and identifying others as alleged 42
homosexuals, and 43
WHEREAS, the committee continued the University of Florida 44
investigations into 1959, having entrapped and intimidated 45
dozens of individuals on and off campus, interrogating them in 46
motel rooms and basements, resulting in the firing of 14 faculty 47
and staff at the University of Florida, and 48
WHEREAS, in the spring of 1959, the committee reported to 49
the Florida Legislature that homosexual professors were 50

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F L O R I D A H O U S E O F R E P R E S E N T A T I V E S

recruiting students into "homosexual practices," and that those 51
students were in turn becoming teachers in Florida's public 52
school system and recruiting even younger students, and 53
WHEREAS, the committee began 4 years of statewide 54
investigations into alleged homosexual activity by public school 55
teachers, administrators, and students, working with local law 56
enforcement agencies and employing the same tactics used at the 57
University of Florida and cooperating with the State Board of 58
Education to revoke individuals' teaching certificates, and 59
WHEREAS, in the spring of 1961, the committee began an 60
inquiry into alleged homosexual activity, liberal teaching 61
methods, curricula, and policies at the University of South 62
Florida in Tampa, and 63
WHEREAS, the committee investigator and attorney, together 64
with local law enforcement, questioned University of South 65
Florida faculty, staff, and students in a motel room without 66
appropriate legal counsel and gathered information about the 67
allegedly anti-Christian, pro-integration, and pro-communist 68
slant of reading assignments, classroom lectures, and invited 69
campus speakers, and 70
WHEREAS, the committee held public hearings to question the 71
University of South Florida faculty and administrators about the 72
content of their courses and policies related to hiring faculty 73
and inviting speakers in an effort to discredit them as 74
atheists, integrationists, and communist sympathizers, damaging 75

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