Some University of South Florida students are circulating a petition online to change the name of a building on campus that’s named after a former member of Congress who was also part of the Johns Committee, which persecuted gay and lesbian students and faculty in the 1950s and 60s.
The ROTC building on campus is named after C. W. “Bill” Young, a long-time Republican Congress member from Pinellas County who died in 2013. From 1962 through 1965 when he was a Florida State Senator, Young served on The Johns Committee. Since the previous decade that group targeted gay and lesbian students and faculty. Joining us in the studio were Danya Zituni and Elizabeth Kramer from Tampa Bay Students for a Democratic Society.
The last bullet point of their petition reads “For a university that serves innumerable LGBTQ students, staff and faculty the name of this building is not only inappropriate, it’s reprehensible.”
We talked about the Johns Committee, the “lavender scare” and the “Purple Pamphlet.”WMNF invited USF president Judy Genshaft on the program. The university responded by email:
“Unfortunately, no one from USF is available for your program today. We appreciate you reaching out and we will keep you posted if there any updates to share regarding this matter.”
Several years ago the LGBT newspaper Watermark said the John’s Committee “was based on the notorious McCarthy Panel and functioned as a state-sponsored hate group that investigated and persecuted homosexuals. …hundreds of teachers, administrators and students [were] fired, expelled or intimidated as a result..”
Here is how Bill Young responded when he was asked about the John’s Committee by the St. Petersburg Times in 1993. This is a quote from the online abstract of the piece: “As a young state senator in the early 1960s, C. W. Bill Young sat on the Johns Committee during some of its most controversial attacks on homosexuals. When the committee touched off an uproar for publishing a pamphlet that included photographs of homosexual acts, Young defended the pamphlet’s contents … And when a New York book club catering to homosexuals sold reprints of the report – known as the purple pamphlet for its purple cover and purple prose – Young reacted angrily.”
We also heard part of President Barack Obama’s speech to the United Nations General Assembly from Monday morning.
https://soundcloud.com/wmnf/students-want-bill-youngs-name-off-usf-building-wmnf-news
11 Responses to “Students want Bill Young’s name off USF building”
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Will you also be addressing the various USF Muslim student groups about homosexuals currently being beating and in some cases thrown from roofs to their deaths by Muslims in the middle east??
what a nonsensical response
It’s a nonsense petition. To think that the world can somehow be made into a place where no one is offended by anything ever is childish. Taking offense is just that. Taking. His name is on that building because of some good work that he did. He had flaws like everyone else. If people took offense at all the ignorance in your life, you’d be offended I’m sure.
I’ve done some good work, why can’t I get my name on the building instead? What has Young done that makes the naming unremovable?
FLAWS???? HE REFUSED TO ALLOW EQUAL TREATMENT OF WOMEN AND GIRLS by ignoring legislation . SO DOES BILL NELSON, who attends Republican events—> DIDN’T YOU KNOW NELSON’S A TRAITOR TOO?
No …. I think its a fair question . Will you complain to USF about Student Funds being given to a group whose religion says that Homosexuals should be killed and actually carry that out. There are tons of videos showing members of the gay community in the middle east being thrown from a roof because of their life choices.
You can’t pick and choose who you want to battle.
again: this is nonsense. Your stupidity is showing.
Technically, tenets of both Christianity and Judaism also say that homosexuals should be killed, and those tenets have been used to justify government oppression and even murder in the US.
As you say, you can’t pick and choose who you want to battle.
Bill Young is being protested for things that Bill Young actually did.
Why would they protest USF Muslim students for things that brown people halfway across the planet do?
That’s not the Only Reason I’d back the students’ project to remove Bill Young’s name!
BILL YOUNG, NOT SO INCONSEQUENTIALLY REFUSED TO ALLOW THE REIGNITED EQUAL RIGHTS AMENDMENT TO MOVE FORWARD FOR MOSTLY THE 52 % OF CITIZENS, US FEMALES! ERA will make sex discrimination, male and female, a VIOLATION OF THE US CONSTITUTION. It can boost our nation’s GDP by BY 9%, boost revenues and cut costs of Medicaid, Public Assistance, food stamps, and the courts! What’s not to like, Bill afficianados?
Why won’t Republicans let us females/the American majority be a partner in the nation’s contract with its People?
Why are they afraid of us women and girls suddenly–in 1940, GOP was the first to put the ERA on its platform. In 1980, Pres.Reagan DELETED IT THERE.
OUR HAIR IS ON FIRE, REPUBLICANS: YOU COULD FIX THE RAPE EPIDEMIC , for instance But YOU GOP refuse! “God will GET YOU for this”!
Let’s PLEASE START ELECTING ADULTS ?!!
Technically, discrimination on the basis of sex is already barred by the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection clause.