Florida’s university system has endured multiple injuries to its integrity over the past few years. But the Board of Governors outdid itself Tuesday in rejecting the distinguished scholar Santa Ono as the lone finalist for president of the University of Florida.

We can only think of one incident that comes close: Seven decades ago, acting Gov. Charley Johns blackballed a UF presidential candidate for having desegregated the University of Louisville.

After his return to the Legislature, in 1957, Johns and other racist lawmakers declared the Supreme Court’s school desegregation decisions null and void, which Gov. LeRoy Collins called an “evil thing.”

That Legislature spawned the notorious Johns Committee, named for its instigator, that tried to smear the fight for civil rights as a commun

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