ChristinaB
06-30-2005, 03:09 PM
Magazine honors ex-governor Charley Johns. (http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050626/NEWS/506260424/1004)
University of Florida alumni and gay rights groups are blasting the university's alumni magazine for naming former governor Charley Johns, an advocate of segregation who spearheaded a committee to stamp out homosexuality at Florida universities, among 81 standout alumni.
UF Today magazine's most recent edition lauds Johns, a former Florida senator and governor, for being an advocate of prison reform and for working to end tolls on state highways.
But some graduates, faculty members and students said the blurb honoring Johns glosses over the darkest part of his legacy -- and a dark part of UF's history -- by failing to mention the Johns Committee, a state committee that aimed to round up gay students, faculty and staff and remove them from campus.
"There's no reason that anyone should be proud of Charley Johns," said Arthur Copleston, 72, who said members of the Johns Committee interrogated him in locked rooms, went through his mail, followed him around campus and generally ruined his college experience at UF in the 1950s.
"He was an ignorant man whose ignorance manifested itself in his formation of the Johns Committee. I'm ashamed to admit it, but because of what they did, I carry emotional scars to this day."
Chris Brazda, a spokesman for the UF Foundation and the UF Alumni Association, said the magazine's editorial staff chose alumni who had made "a major impact on the state, nation or world" for the list, and said staff members were aware of all of Johns' contributions to Florida history when they named him.
Brazda said Johns made the list because it acknowledged every Florida governor who had attended UF.
Johns was admitted to UF Sept. 17, 1923, and withdrew Nov. 23 of the same year, UF officials said.
The three-sentence description of Johns acknowledges his support of segregation, but does not mention the Johns Committee.
"The people making the decision were certainly aware of the Johns (Committee)," Brazda said. "No person listed in here was given much more than two sentences. There's not a lot of information about each one. I can't say whether a conscious decision was made to include or not include the information about the (committee). That was one of many things that will go down with his name."
Johns was born and raised poor in Bradford County and worked on the railroad and as an insurance salesman there before he was elected to the Florida Senate in 1947.
He was appointed governor in 1953, after Gov. Dan McCarty died in office, and kept the seat until he lost an election two years later.
When he returned to the Senate, he created the Johns Committee.
Michael Gannon, distinguished service professor emeritus of history at UF, said the nine years the committee existed amounted to "Florida's own special form of McCarthyism."
The committee, formally known as the Florida Legislative Investigation Committee, first targeted black desegregationists and their white supporters as communists, Gannon said. When it met fierce opposition from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Gannon said, Johns turned the group's attention toward gays on college campuses.
UF became its first target in 1958, Gannon said.
Copleston, who is now retired and living in Palm Springs, Calif., after years of working in the chemical industry, said he first became aware of the group in a bar on University Avenue in 1958.
"I was talking with some friends at the jukebox, having a beer, and someone came up to me and said, `That guy over there has been watching you for about half an hour. Be very careful,' " said Copleston, who is gay.
Within a few days, Copleston said, he'd been thrown in the back of a squad car, locked in an interrogation tank and warned that he had to reveal the names of everyone he knew on campus who might be gay -- or risk being thrown out of school.
Copleston said he didn't submit any names and wasn't thrown out. But until he graduated, he said, members of the committee terrorized him to the point where he didn't want to leave the library.
Gannon said 50 UF students were expelled and 20 staff and faculty members were fired because of the committee's work.
In addition, Gannon said, after one of the committee's roundups, a geography professor of 28 years who had just been fired swallowed 85 aspirin tablets and climbed to the top of the student union building, intending to throw himself off. He stopped himself, Gannon said, but wrote later that he lived the rest of his life "with a scarlet letter branded upon" him.
Gannon said while the committee conducted similar investigations at Florida State University and other state schools, UF officials -- including then-president J. Wayne Reitz -- earned special criticism for complying fully with the investigations.
"Since the story has gotten out in the past six or seven years, it becomes understandable why some people are appalled that Charley Johns would be named to a list of distinguished alumni," Gannon said. "Maybe there are some who do believe -- some die-hard segregationists, some anti-communists who agree with what the Johns Committee carried out -- he deserves the (distinguished alumni) title."
Copleston said he finished his time at UF quietly. Leaving would have meant losing his GI Bill funding, he said.
When he graduated, he said he fled Gainesville in his Plymouth convertible and resolved to never come back.
"They were able to instill in us just an incredible sense of unworthiness of being somehow contaminated," Copleston said. "We felt we were somehow less than normal, less than worthy. They were amazingly successful. I'm sure the people who did this hadn't a clue about the extent of damage they were causing in people's lives. I was glad when the article came out, because it gave me a chance to write and say, `Shame on you.' "
Copleston did write to the magazine, asking its editors to renounce their decision to place Johns on the list.
Brazda said Copleston's letter was the only negative feedback the magazine and the association received. He said the magazine publishes every letter it receives, and planned to publish Copleston's letter, too.
"We understand this gentleman's feelings expressed in this letter," Brazda said. "And we certainly understand why he would be upset."
The magazine is sent to dues-paying members of the alumni association and is funded through the association.
Brazda said the magazine's editor would decide whether the magazine would respond to the letter and said he imagined that "whether she puts in a repudiation, as the gentleman puts it, would be considered in their discussions."
Jeanna Mastrodicasa, a member of UF's Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Concerns Committee, did not request a public apology.
Still, she said, "A little acknowledgment of historical reality in the next issue would be nice."
"What I find to be offensive about the selection is that he really did some bad things specifically to the University of Florida," Mastrodicasa said. "It's not even just that he did some bad stuff in the state. What Charley Johns did was very specific in its negative impact on the university, and it was not a shining moment in UF history."
Johns died in 1990 at the age of 84.
In Johns' home county, where he expanded the state prison in Starke and sought funds to pave many of the county's dirt roads, he remains a hero, said Bradford County Commissioner Doyle Thomas.
University of Florida alumni and gay rights groups are blasting the university's alumni magazine for naming former governor Charley Johns, an advocate of segregation who spearheaded a committee to stamp out homosexuality at Florida universities, among 81 standout alumni.
UF Today magazine's most recent edition lauds Johns, a former Florida senator and governor, for being an advocate of prison reform and for working to end tolls on state highways.
But some graduates, faculty members and students said the blurb honoring Johns glosses over the darkest part of his legacy -- and a dark part of UF's history -- by failing to mention the Johns Committee, a state committee that aimed to round up gay students, faculty and staff and remove them from campus.
"There's no reason that anyone should be proud of Charley Johns," said Arthur Copleston, 72, who said members of the Johns Committee interrogated him in locked rooms, went through his mail, followed him around campus and generally ruined his college experience at UF in the 1950s.
"He was an ignorant man whose ignorance manifested itself in his formation of the Johns Committee. I'm ashamed to admit it, but because of what they did, I carry emotional scars to this day."
Chris Brazda, a spokesman for the UF Foundation and the UF Alumni Association, said the magazine's editorial staff chose alumni who had made "a major impact on the state, nation or world" for the list, and said staff members were aware of all of Johns' contributions to Florida history when they named him.
Brazda said Johns made the list because it acknowledged every Florida governor who had attended UF.
Johns was admitted to UF Sept. 17, 1923, and withdrew Nov. 23 of the same year, UF officials said.
The three-sentence description of Johns acknowledges his support of segregation, but does not mention the Johns Committee.
"The people making the decision were certainly aware of the Johns (Committee)," Brazda said. "No person listed in here was given much more than two sentences. There's not a lot of information about each one. I can't say whether a conscious decision was made to include or not include the information about the (committee). That was one of many things that will go down with his name."
Johns was born and raised poor in Bradford County and worked on the railroad and as an insurance salesman there before he was elected to the Florida Senate in 1947.
He was appointed governor in 1953, after Gov. Dan McCarty died in office, and kept the seat until he lost an election two years later.
When he returned to the Senate, he created the Johns Committee.
Michael Gannon, distinguished service professor emeritus of history at UF, said the nine years the committee existed amounted to "Florida's own special form of McCarthyism."
The committee, formally known as the Florida Legislative Investigation Committee, first targeted black desegregationists and their white supporters as communists, Gannon said. When it met fierce opposition from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Gannon said, Johns turned the group's attention toward gays on college campuses.
UF became its first target in 1958, Gannon said.
Copleston, who is now retired and living in Palm Springs, Calif., after years of working in the chemical industry, said he first became aware of the group in a bar on University Avenue in 1958.
"I was talking with some friends at the jukebox, having a beer, and someone came up to me and said, `That guy over there has been watching you for about half an hour. Be very careful,' " said Copleston, who is gay.
Within a few days, Copleston said, he'd been thrown in the back of a squad car, locked in an interrogation tank and warned that he had to reveal the names of everyone he knew on campus who might be gay -- or risk being thrown out of school.
Copleston said he didn't submit any names and wasn't thrown out. But until he graduated, he said, members of the committee terrorized him to the point where he didn't want to leave the library.
Gannon said 50 UF students were expelled and 20 staff and faculty members were fired because of the committee's work.
In addition, Gannon said, after one of the committee's roundups, a geography professor of 28 years who had just been fired swallowed 85 aspirin tablets and climbed to the top of the student union building, intending to throw himself off. He stopped himself, Gannon said, but wrote later that he lived the rest of his life "with a scarlet letter branded upon" him.
Gannon said while the committee conducted similar investigations at Florida State University and other state schools, UF officials -- including then-president J. Wayne Reitz -- earned special criticism for complying fully with the investigations.
"Since the story has gotten out in the past six or seven years, it becomes understandable why some people are appalled that Charley Johns would be named to a list of distinguished alumni," Gannon said. "Maybe there are some who do believe -- some die-hard segregationists, some anti-communists who agree with what the Johns Committee carried out -- he deserves the (distinguished alumni) title."
Copleston said he finished his time at UF quietly. Leaving would have meant losing his GI Bill funding, he said.
When he graduated, he said he fled Gainesville in his Plymouth convertible and resolved to never come back.
"They were able to instill in us just an incredible sense of unworthiness of being somehow contaminated," Copleston said. "We felt we were somehow less than normal, less than worthy. They were amazingly successful. I'm sure the people who did this hadn't a clue about the extent of damage they were causing in people's lives. I was glad when the article came out, because it gave me a chance to write and say, `Shame on you.' "
Copleston did write to the magazine, asking its editors to renounce their decision to place Johns on the list.
Brazda said Copleston's letter was the only negative feedback the magazine and the association received. He said the magazine publishes every letter it receives, and planned to publish Copleston's letter, too.
"We understand this gentleman's feelings expressed in this letter," Brazda said. "And we certainly understand why he would be upset."
The magazine is sent to dues-paying members of the alumni association and is funded through the association.
Brazda said the magazine's editor would decide whether the magazine would respond to the letter and said he imagined that "whether she puts in a repudiation, as the gentleman puts it, would be considered in their discussions."
Jeanna Mastrodicasa, a member of UF's Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Concerns Committee, did not request a public apology.
Still, she said, "A little acknowledgment of historical reality in the next issue would be nice."
"What I find to be offensive about the selection is that he really did some bad things specifically to the University of Florida," Mastrodicasa said. "It's not even just that he did some bad stuff in the state. What Charley Johns did was very specific in its negative impact on the university, and it was not a shining moment in UF history."
Johns died in 1990 at the age of 84.
In Johns' home county, where he expanded the state prison in Starke and sought funds to pave many of the county's dirt roads, he remains a hero, said Bradford County Commissioner Doyle Thomas.