 On March 30, 1965, Governor John Connally officially renamed the school East Texas State University by signing House Bill 333.Against a backdrop of widespread integration and previous refusals of applications from prospective African American students by ETSC and its predecessor East Texas State Teachers College (ETSTC) in the 1950s, by the early 1960s Gee realized that "he could not indefinitely delay the inevitable".In 1962, the staunch conservative and segregationist created a secret ad hoc committee that was charged with planning the peaceful desegregation of ETSC.