FL H0033

The Legislature acknowledges injustices perpetrated by the Florida Legislative Investigation Committee (FLIC) between 1956 and 1965 and offers a formal apology to those whose lives and livelihoods were damaged by the committee's activities.

FLIC surveilled, harassed, and arrested participants in the 1956 Tallahassee bus boycott and targeted NAACP members, falsely claiming the organization was violating law by soliciting desegregation lawsuit plaintiffs and had been infiltrated by communists.

The committee conducted investigations from 1958-1959 at the University of Florida using entrapment and coercion tactics against faculty, staff, and students suspected of homosexual activity, resulting in 14 terminations.

FLIC initiated 4 years of statewide investigations into alleged homosexual activity by public school teachers and administrators using similar coercive tactics and working with the Florida Board of Education to revoke teaching certificates.

The committee investigated the University of South Florida in 1961, questioning faculty and students about course content and campus speakers, attempting to discredit them as atheists, integrationists, and communist sympathizers and damaging their careers.