Date of Award

2018

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Goff, Brendan

Area of Concentration

History and Science

Abstract

Using a combination of secondary sources and archival research, this thesis examines the history of Florida’s two most prominent public universities, Florida State University, and the University of Florida, during the peak years of the American counterculture. Influenced by national trends, Florida campuses during this era were characterized by many campus conflicts surrounding the issues of drug use, academic freedom, the integration of African-American students, and the doctrine of in loco parentis. On campus, student and faculty organized and protested restrictions on their activities and behavior, and their efforts were opposed by university administrators, representatives of the state legislature, and members of the public. The two most prominent university presidents of this period, Stephen C. O’Connell of the University of Florida, and J. Stanley Marshall of Florida State University, were both confronted by radical movements on their respective campuses, and responded with varying degrees of reaction. Students and faculty faced expulsion and dismissal from the university for taking part in campus demonstrations that violated both the written and unwritten rules of campus conduct. Conservative white opposition to radical campus groups crystallized in a coalition of the affluent and the undereducated, two groups who felt threatened by the independence of the apparatus of public higher education.

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