FL S0688

Florida Senate Concurrent Resolution 688, introduced by Senator Book in 2023, offers a formal apology to individuals targeted by the Florida Legislative Investigation Committee between 1956 and 1965

The committee surveilled, harassed, intimidated, and arrested civil rights activists, NAACP members, and participants in the 1956 Tallahassee bus boycott, attempting to discredit desegregation efforts by labeling members as criminals and communist sympathizers

Beginning in 1958 at the University of Florida, the committee's investigators entrapped and interrogated individuals suspected of homosexual activity without legal counsel, using threats of public hearings or perjury charges to coerce confessions, resulting in the firing of 14 faculty and staff

The committee conducted 4 years of statewide investigations into public school teachers and administrators, cooperating with the State Board of Education to revoke teaching certificates, and later targeted University of South Florida faculty over alleged liberal teaching methods and pro-integration policies

The resolution acknowledges the committee spent 9 years using unconstitutional methods at taxpayer expense, destroying livelihoods and reputations, creating a climate of fear, and making Florida a national symbol of intolerance