Education

Oral history series spotlights retired UF dean’s decades of campus activism

A 1992 interview from the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program at UF, recently excerpted by the Gainesville Iguana, features retired associate dean Phyllis Meek recounting her career navigating student activism, gender-based regulations, and speech restrictions at the university from the mid-1960s onward. Meek describes dismantling curfews and dress codes for women students, the lifting of a campus ban on outside speakers, and the creation of a committee addressing sexism and homophobia in 1989. She also reflects on what she saw as a late-1980s backlash against tolerance on campus, including more overt expressions of racism and homophobia.

Sources: The Gainesville Iguana