Virgil D. Hawkins Story

Timeline of the Struggle for Civil Rights at UF

Paving the Way for Equal Rights

In April 1949, Virgil D. Hawkins, the director of public relations for Bethune Cookman College, applied for admission to the University of Florida College of Law. He was academically eligible and possessed appropriate life experience qualifications. For nine years Hawkins and his allies would fight Florida’s Jim Crow laws, which racially segregated its state universities, until they were ultimately victorious in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Unequal Protection

UF denied admission to Hawkins and five other African-American applicants in May of 1949 solely based on race. Hawkins appealed under the Equal Protection Clause to the Florida Supreme Court but did not prevail. The Court instead required Florida to build a law school for black students at Florida A&M University. Between 1948 and 1956, 85 African-American students were denied admission to UF.

“All Deliberate Speed”

In the landmark 1954 decision Brown v. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered that public schools nationwide must be desegregated with “all deliberate speed” by 1956 and in a companion decision ordered UF to admit Hawkins. He was still not admitted and would go before the Florida Supreme Court three more times and the United States Supreme Court twice more.

Sacrifice Leads to Integration

In 1958, Hawkins withdrew his application to the University of Florida College of Law in exchange for a Florida Supreme court order desegregating UF’s graduate and professional schools. On Sept. 15, 1958, George Starke was admitted to the College of Law as UF’s first African-American law student. Starke received police protection for the first few weeks but withdrew after three semesters. Public schools across Florida finally began to integrate. W. George Allen became the first African-American to graduate from the University of Florida College of Law in 1962. The first seven African American undergraduates registered at UF.

Progress at UF

The 1960s were an era of change and instability but also of great progress. This eventful decade included the March on Washington, JFK’s assassination, 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the desegregation of Alachua County public schools. In 1965, the Center for African Studies was established at UF. In 1968, the Black Student Union was established at UF.

In 1969, Spencer Boyer was hired as a visiting professor and became the first African-American to teach at UF Law, but he and his family left abruptly after receiving threats. Also in 1969, the African American Studies Program began at UF.

Stephan P. Mickle became the second African-American to graduate from UF Law in 1970. Mickle went on to become the first African-American to establish a law practice in Gainesville and ultimately became a federal judge. The 1970s student protests against UF admissions policies based on race paved the way for UF’s first affirmative action policy after one-third of African-American students left the university. Since then, UF has established itself as a racially diverse institution, with the Center for the Study of Race and Race Relations established at the law school dedicated to the continued study and discussion of difficult race-related issues.

The Florida Constitutional Law Endowment in memory of Justice Ben F. Overton was created by Judge Karen Miller in 2013. This fund supports lectures and presentations by Justices of the Florida Supreme Court at the Fredric G. Levin College of Law.

HISTORY

Justice Overton, who earned his B.S. in 1951 and his Juris Doctor in 1952 from the University of Florida, was the first merit appointment to the Florida Supreme Court. Throughout his career he was active in legal education and served as an Adjunct Professor at the Levin College of Law through December 2012, the month of his death. Although he resided at Oak Hammock at the University of Florida, a continuing care retirement community developed in cooperation with UF, he also considered the Florida Supreme Court “home.” Among the high points of his later years was hosting Justices of the Florida Supreme Court in Gainesville and taking his class to Tallahassee to hear oral arguments at the Florida Supreme Court.
Judge Miller, who earned her B.S. cum laude from New York University in 1974 and her Juris Doctor from New York Law School in 1977, served as Chief Administrative Law Judge of the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs, New York City’s business regulatory agency, before she retired to Oak Hammock at the University of Florida. Having accompanied Justice Overton on his excursions to Tallahassee and joined him in welcoming guests to Oak Hammock at the University of Florida, she created the endowment in memory of Justice Overton to ensure that the Levin College of Law continues to have the funding necessary to continue and enhance the interaction between its students and the Florida Supreme Court.

Judge Miller remembered the event that motivated the endowment.

Prior to a dinner at the home of Dean Robert Jerry and Lisa Jerry shortly after Justice Overton’s death, Justice Barbara Pariente and I were discussing a suitable memorial. Justice Pariente, who had been Justice Overton’s colleague on the Florida Supreme Court and who understood the importance to him of the interaction between his students and the Court, suggested the outline of what has become the Overton lectures. Dean Jerry, who has since retired, as has Dean Emeritus Jon Mills, who assumed responsibility for implementing the Overton lectures, were very supportive from the beginning. Since Dean Mills’ retirement, Professor Timothy McClendon, who assisted both Justice Overton and Dean Mills teaching Florida Constitutional Law and who co-authored the recent Florida Constitutional Law casebook, has continued the Overton lectures with the support of Interim Dean Merritt McAlister and CGR director, Professor Danaya Wright.

Justice Overton was a devoted jurist, educator, and ethical leader of the Florida legal profession. The Overton Lecture Series brings Florida Supreme Court Justices to the University of Florida, Levin College of Law, and serves to introduce students to the inner workings of the Court. CGR and the students of the College of Law extend our deepest gratitude to Judge Karen Miller for making the Overton Lectures possible in perpetuity.

You can watch an interview for the Florida Historical Society by Mary Adkins, professor emeritus of the UF Levin College of Law, with Justice Overton here.

Justice Overton was also interviewed for the Samuel Proctor Oral History Project and a transcript of his interview is available at the Smathers Library, and here.
Justice Overton sat on the Constitution Revision Commission of 1977-78 that proposed a right to privacy in the Florida Constitution. Although it failed as part of the Constitution Revision Commission recommendations, it passed in 1980 when proposed by the legislature. The bill was co-sponsored by our very own Jon Mills. The privacy provision prevailed by greater than 60%. Justice Overton then wrote a concurrence in a critical reproductive rights case in 1989 affirming that the privacy provision of the Florida Constitution included the right to obtain an abortion. That decision was overruled in Planned Parenthood of SW and Central Florida v. Florida. You can read about the role of Justice Overton, Jon Mills – director emeritus of CGR, and the history of the 1989 case here.