So you have an HTML fragment of text from which you want to strip HTML tags? That's something you'll have to do with something other than JSTL.
Personally, I'd make the changes earlier such that HTML isn't stored in the DB in the first place. But if that's not possible I'd certainly make sure to cleanse the
string prior to forwarding it to the JSP.
I've moved this to a general
Java forum with an appropriate change in title as this is not JSP-specific.