I attended USF, on and off, from 1964 to 1977.

I started at the height of the Civil Rights movement, and came back from the Navy in time to see the aftermath of the MLK assassination and the riots, Black Power and the Panthers. I never experienced this kind of overt, vicious, proud bigotry on campus, not even from the frat rats, who for the most part, shared our liberal views on race relations. It was the Deep South, and the universities were an archipelago of tolerance in a sea of hate and racism, in spite of the political and cultural turmoil of the times. Even during my stint in the service, I was pleasantly shocked to see how the military was systematically and successfully combating Jim Crow and racial discrimination. I went from a society that was brutally segregated to one I was very proud of, in just a few years, my most formative and impressionable years.

These are not a gang of knuckle-dragging bigots in a small Southern backwater. Or a Ferguson-style police racket extorting traffic fines from black motorists, shooting one occasionally to keep them intimidated. These are our finest, prosperous university students from "good families", educated, privileged, upper and middle class young people training for leadership positions in our business and commercial elites.