Doing the Public's Business: Florida's Purge of Gay and Lesbian Teachers, 1959–1964

Abstract

A decade after Kinsey published his famous studies on sexuality, a special legislative committee in Florida targeted gay and lesbian teachers in an investigation that led to the dismissal and loss of credentials for scores of educators. The Florida purge of 1959–1964 remains without parallel in educational history in terms of its intensity and scope. This historical analysis traces the actions of the legislative committee, the State Department of Education, the Florida Education Association, and the Florida Supreme Court in pressing discrimination against gay and lesbian teachers into law as the locus of oppression shifted from a renegade legislative committee to a permanent state institution.

Homosexuality is not an illness like chickenpox—you cannot see it by looking into another person's face …. The revocation of a teaching certificate is the public's business …. The presence of even one homosexual teacher in our schools is not to be tolerated. (Bailey 1961, 2–3)