Dozier School victims claim victory as Senate OKs compensation fund
The arc of the moral universe started bending towards justice Monday for the Dozier boys.
After years of impasse, Florida lawmakers finally approved a $20 million fund to compensate the victims of sexual, physical, and mental abuse over a 35-year period at the state-run (and now-defunct) Dozier School for Boys in Marianna.
More than a dozen men, now in their 70s and 80s, sat in the Senate gallery for a 13-minute discussion of the legislation as lawmakers praised their perseverance in making public the abuse they suffered while wards of the state.
The measure (HB 21), which passed the House last week, creates the Dozier School for Boys and Okeechobee School Victim Program. Its aim: To compensate those still living who were held at the Dozier School or the Okeechobee School, then known as “reform schools,” between 1940 and 1975.
“Let’s put it this way: They beat our asses but, in the end, we beat them. That’s all. This (is) one of the greatest feelings,” said retired Army Ranger Capt. Bryant Middleton, a Dozier survivor, minutes after the Senate vote.
The legislation now goes to Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is expected to approve it. Applicants must attest to being subjected to mental, physical, or sexual abuse at the hands of school staff. Surviving family members are not entitled to compensation, however.
Monday’s passage marks the end of a nearly two-decade attempt to get recognition and compensation from the state.
“All I can say is that it should not have taken 16 years with all the evidence that came forward,” Middleton said. “I personally was polygraphed by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and year after year after year, they threw stumbling (blocks) at us. But we didn’t give up.”
Middleton, who was held at Dozier 1959-61, later became a Vietnam War Purple Heart recipient, then joined up with Jerry Cooper, the de facto leader of what became known as the “White House Boys.” Cooper died in 2022.
A long road to closure
The state first began investigating victims’ claims under then-Gov. Charlie Crist. Years passed until then-Gov. Rick Scott finally apologized and agreed seven years ago that they should be compensated for their suffering, which included rapes, beatings and other abuses.
But claim bills, which would have authorized state payments to the victims, repeatedly failed to pass the Florida Legislature — until this year.
“We officially said, as a state, ‘we’re sorry’ years ago. But ‘sorry’ sometimes doesn’t cut it,” said Sen. Blaise Ingoglia, R-Spring Hill.
Indeed, frustration over the failure of previous claim bills led Middleton to call the Legislature’s 2017 apology for the abuse they suffered “empty words,” which he later apologized for.
Sen. Darryl Rouson, D-St. Petersburg, has carried a Dozier victim compensation bill for eight consecutive years. He told his colleagues Monday that this year’s effort fulfilled “a solemn obligation to honor the souls of the dead and the still-missing and to give credence to the screams of children who are now men.”
“This bill is fundamentally about the imperative to make right the past wrongs,” Rouson said.
Sen. Tracie Davis, D-Jacksonville, sponsored a Dozier compensation bill for six consecutive sessions when she was in the House in 2017-22.
While money can’t heal all wounds, Davis said, it can help these 70- and 80year-old men get the resources and help they need to “end (their) days better than they started as abused, tortured (children) in a state-run school.”
James Call is a member of the USA TODAY Network – Florida Capital Bureau. He can be reached at jcall@talla hassee.com. Follow him on X: @Call Tallahassee.