Thread by @Will_Bunch

1. I'm writing a thread about today's column because I'm so worked up, and because more people need to know the history

What's so disturbing about what's happening in Florida is that it's copied from the playbook of a shameful episode in its history inquirer.com/columnists/att…

2. In fact, the abuses of Florida's so-called Johns Committee were so great that a current lawmaker, Rep. Evan Jenne, is pushing for the state to issue a formal apology

Instead, Gov. DeSantis and friends are bringing back the 'Red Scare'

Here's the deal tallahassee.com/story/news/201…

3. Despite its name, the Johns Committee didn't probe prostitution. After WW2, the Florida Legislative Investigation Committee was chaired by Sen. Charley Johns, head of a white segregationist caucus called the Pork Choppers who held sway in Tallahassee thefloridasqueeze.com/2013/07/20/rem…

4. In the late 1950s, Johns and his allies formed the committee with the original goal of proving links between the NAACP and Communists, an effort that was easily thwarted by NAACP leaders like Thurgood Marshall. So instead, the Johns Committee targeted college campuses...

5. In a typical hearing in the late 1950s, committee members assailed the University of South Florida for teaching evolution as scientific fact and for a reading list it called "pornographic" -- books like Catcher in the Rye and the Grapes of Wrath en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_L…

6. But the worst abuse by the Johns Committee was its targeting of the LGBTQ community. Some professors said they were interrogated 3 or 4 times, often marched out of class for questioning by uniformed police officers behindcloseddoorsfilm.com/uf.htm

7. In the end, scores of faculty and staff were fired from Florida's public universities in the late 1950s for their suspected LGBTQ proclivities. The chairman of the University of Florida's geography department attempted suicide after he was forced to resign

8. Many students who were questioned during Florida's inquisition dropped out or were otherwise scarred. UF's 1959 yearbook is actually dedicated to "many students who for some reason leave the [university], never to return." gainesville.com/story/news/loc…

9. The effort collapsed in the 1960s after the committee's embarassing "Purple Pamphlet" targeting Florida's LGBTQ community -- so graphic that NY porn shops sold it. That was the end of a shameful era, right? Right? behindcloseddoorsfilm.com/purplepam.htm

10. Flash forward to 2021, and White House-seeking demagogic Gov. Ron DeSantis is seeking political gain with the biggest attack on academic freedom in Florida since the Johns Committee. A law he signed last week requires public universities to survey students and faculty...

11. ...for what they call "viewpoint diversity" with an explicit threat that schools could lose their government funding if the climate is not sufficiently deferential to right-wing ideology of DeSantis and his allies washingtonpost.com/education/2021…

12. What's more, the DeSantis-tied state Board of Education has led the parade of whipping up white suburban parents against their teachers by banning what they call "critical race theory" -- i.e., lessons about America's true past abc7chicago.com/florida-bans-c…

13. This is nothing less than a replay of McCarthyism and the 'Red Scare' of the 1950s, when groups like the American Legion demanded that only "Americanism" be taught in Florida's classroom. It's a desperate attempt for the GOP to find an incendiary device to cling to power...

14. Ron DeSantis isn't just ignorant of Florida's shameful history, but he is reigniting it to further his cynical ambitions. How many lives will be destroyed this time?

Here, again, is my column -- read the whole thing and tell me what you think -30- inquirer.com/columnists/att…