Category Archives: student

March for Our Lives – Austin, TX

Local event sign up:   March for Our Lives – Austin, TX
There is a fundraiser to help defray costs (see below)

Austin City Hall
301 W 2nd St
Austin, TX 78701

When:   Saturday, March 24, 12:00 PM
Directions to event, Google map

On March 24, the kids and families of March For Our Lives will take to the streets to demand that their lives and safety become a priority and that we end gun violence and mass shootings in our schools today. March begins at City Hall and continues to the TX Capitol to hear speakers and learn more about getting involved. Event will end by 3pm. On March 24, the collective voices of the March For Our Lives movement will be heard.

Fundraiser to pay for
-Sanitation services (portajohns, toilet paper,etc)
-Audio/stage rental
-electrical support- generator, electrician
-water stations
-50 chairs for speakers, press,etc; 30 tables for outreach
-tash/recycling- pick up and disposal

Upcoming Events to Demand Action on Gun Violence in Our Communities

Enough: National School Walkout (Women’s March)
Date: March 14th (Wednesday during AISD Spring Break)
Time: rolling 10am, walkout for 17 minutes

Texas Coalition to Reduce Gun Violence Meeting
Date: March 22nd (Thursday)
Time: 9-11am
Where: Texas Capitol, Legislative Conference Center, E2.002

March for Our Lives (organized by students)
Date: March 24th (Saturday)
Time: 12-3pm
Where: Rally at City Hall, march to the Texas Capitol

National Day of Action Against Gun Violence in Schools (Anniversary of Columbine shooting)
Date: April 20th (Friday)
Time: 1-3 pm (National time is 10am)
Where: Texas Capitol

Wear Orange: National Gun Violence Awareness Day
Date: June 2nd (Saturday)
Time: all day
Where: everywhere

And don’t forget

GUN FREE UT – ENOUGH! MONDAYS
Mondays from noon- 1pm at the MLK Statue on UT’s East Mall. Join with us to protest the continuing tidal wave of gun violence enveloping our country. Bring your lunch, your signs, wear your GFUT T-shirts (or something orange) and join us!

Pro-gun activists help make the case against guns

Because they spoke out against gun culture, our activists have been subjected to a nonstop barrage of threats and sexist, racist, anti-semitic, Islamophobic, homophobic, transphobic comments. When rabid gun fanatics can’t win an argument, they resort to threats and publicly daydreaming and laughing about the rape and murder of their detractors. In a true demonstration of brains vs. brawn, they have claimed over and over that the only way they’ll be proven “right” is if we get hurt. They apparently can’t wait for it to happen, because today they used the likeness of our activists to play out these murder fantasies in a violent video, to try to scare us into silence. They’re spamming our walls with it, and offering their condolences for our “murdered” colleague.

They’re determined to put their violent machinations and embarrassingly backwards, fear mongering, victim blaming attitudes on public display in order to prove to us exactly why these people shouldn’t be making the rules for how universities are run. We don’t mind amplifying that message, and helping them with that goal. [CW: murder, robbery, blood, gun violence]. Remember, these people keep saying that we “deserve” this, just for speaking out against gun culture. If you don’t think gun culture has a chilling effect on free speech on campus, think again.

— Jessica Jin,  Cocks not Glocks

Press Release: Longhorns Rounding up National to Local Legislative Hopefuls for Q&A on #ClassroomCarry

PRESS RELEASE
22nd February,  2016, For Immediate Release

Link to Document

Longhorn Cattle Call: Longhorn’s Rounding up National to Local Legislative Hopefuls for Q&A on #ClassroomCarry
There will be no roping or riding, Friday 26th February at 2pm, but Longhornsnational to local legislative hopefuls (including UT’s GSA) who’ve thrown their hats into the civil service ring, are being asked to attend the Longhorn Cattle Call; a Q&A session to answer specific questions about Campus Carry on the West Mall Steps. Following recent direct actions within campus, UT Graduate Students Against Classroom Carry and the Legislative Affairs Committee of the Graduate Student Assembly are now pivoting from their focus on President Fenves to the Texas State Legislators who have imposed #SB11 and #ClassroomCarry on a community that is entirely opposed to it (Faculty Council, Graduate Student Assembly, and Student Governance have all passed resolutions opposing guns in classrooms). UT faculty and grad students say they suffer ongoing frustration with the current law as implemented. Among the queries: “Do you support an emergency injunction of SB11 in order to address real and anticipated harms caused by SB11 and its implementation as planned?” and “Do you support an ‘equality’ amendment allowing public universities to opt out?” To help ease the mood, the event will feature BBQ and music. The press is invited to attend.

CONTACT

UT Graduate Students Against Classroom Carry:  Coordinators
Legislative Affairs Committee of the Graduate Student Assembly: Chair, Michael Barnes

“Photo courtesy of Dickinson Cattle Co. LLC

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February 26 — Longhorn Cattle Call, Q & A with candidates on Campus Carry

Longhorn Cattle Call: Longhorns rounding up all candidates and elected officials for Q&A on SB11 and Classroom Carry

Friday February 26,  2PM
Details coming soon

Facebook Event

Graduate Students Against Classroom Carry and the Legislative Affairs Committee of the Graduate Student Assembly have come together once again to continue the fight against #SB11 and #ClassroomCarry. We are now pivoting from our focus on President Fenves to the Texas State Legislators who have imposed this law on a community that is entirely opposed to it.

Graduate Student Assembly Resolution

Link to document

G.R. 16 (S) 1
The Graduate Student Assembly
The University of Texas at Austin

Resolution: G.R. 16 (S) 1 Sponsors: Legislative Affairs Committee
Keeping UT Classrooms Gun-Free

Summary: A resolution expressing the position of the Graduate Student Assembly on Senate Bill 11 (S.B. 11), the “campus carry” law.

WHEREAS

“Senate Bill 11, the “campus carry” law, was passed by the Texas Legislature and signed into law by Governor Abbott last spring and provides that, beginning August 1, 2016, a person who holds a license to carry may carry a handgun – concealed – both on the grounds and in the buildings of an institution of higher education”; and
(from the Final Report, Campus Carry Working Group)

WHEREAS

Graduate students increasingly live, work, study, and learn in spaces that will be open to CHL holders under S.B. 11, if implemented as per the Campus Carry Working Group recommendations; and

WHEREAS

1,787 UT graduate students to date have signed a public statement affirming their opposition to firearms in UT classrooms, who belong to 132 programs in 18 Colleges and Schools at UT and represent 15.8% of the university’s 11,331 graduate student population; and
(from press release, UT Grad Students Oppose Campus Carry)

WHEREAS

The Campus Carry Working group found, “A very substantial majority of the comments [they] received from the University community expressed opposition to or serious misgivings about S.B. 11 and the implementation of campus carry,” which is consistent with conversations shared with this body during assembly meetings and with comments received by our members; and

WHEREAS

We believe new university policies, whether produced internally or required by the state legislature, ought to have a demonstrated positive effect on educational outcomes, and a review of the evidence cited by the Campus Carry Working Group in their report finds no positive effect, in fact their report recognizes that “allowing concealed handguns in classrooms may chill some class discussion and hinder the recruitment and retention of faculty and students”; and

WHEREAS

We are eager to engage in a detailed conversation around the implementation of S.B.11 at UT in the future, we believe it is important to acknowledge a significant group of graduate students who are opposed to guns in academic classrooms in any and all circumstances; and

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT

The Graduate Student Assembly strongly opposes concealed handgun license (CHL) holders bringing concealed weapons into UT classrooms; and

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT

The Graduate Student Assembly considers S.B.11 an ideological bill that is an unnecessary intrusion into an educational environment that risks, in the words of Chancellor McRaven, stifling “the academic freedom and robust debate that is central to our mission of educating the young men and women of our state and conducting the research that changes lives and the world around us”; and

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT

The Graduate Student Assembly strongly encourages that President Gregory Fenves do everything in his power to prevent CHL holders from bringing concealed weapons into UT classrooms; and

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT

This legislation be filed with the Office of the President, made available on the Graduate Student Assembly website, and be broadly distributed to graduate students and the UT community.

Press Release: “Grad Students say ‘Don’t Waste Your Breath’ to Tabled Measure”

PRESS RELEASE

2nd February,  2016
For Immediate Release

Contact : UT Graduate Students Against Classroom Carry
Link to File
Facebook Event

The University of Texas, Austin: “Grad Students say ‘Don’t Waste Your Breath’ to Tabled Measure”

On January 27th, in an unexpected and surprising action, the Graduate Student Assembly (GSA) refused to cast a vote on a proposed resolution (G.R.16(S)1) that opposes concealed handguns in classrooms at The University of Texas at Austin.  The GSA Legislative Affairs Committee, which introduced the original resolution, authored by chair Michael Barnes, called for an amended version of the resolution to be reconsidered by GSA on Wednesday, February 3rd in a special session.  The Legislative Affairs Committee worked last week with vocal critics of the original resolution in drafting the amended version.

In advance of the special session, we are calling for direct action in order to ensure graduate student voices are recognized and respected. UT Graduate Students Against Campus Carry, working in partnership with the Legislative Affairs Committee, invites all graduate students to an event titled “Don’t Waste Your Breath” (Wed., Feb 3rd, 3:00-5:30 pm on Gregory Plaza). We will put our “hot air” to use by asking each graduate student to blow up a balloon as a visible “vote” for or against implementation of Campus Carry (SB11) at UT. We will then haul the balloons — our collective breath — to the GSA Special Session to visually represent our strength in numbers.

The disappointing indecision within GSA last week comes as a very unwelcome surprise to nearly 1,800 graduate students who join the voices of 1,700 faculty members, the Faculty Council and 40 academic departments, centers, and schools who support making classrooms “gun-free zones.”

The concerns of graduate students regarding SB11 were evident during the first forty minutes of the GSA meeting, during a discussion with Vice President Vance Roper about the Campus Carry Working Group’s Report. Graduate students overwhelmingly raised concerns about the implementation of SB11, and specifically about the Campus Carry Working Group’s recommendations that guns should be allowed in classrooms, and that graduate students who share offices should not be allowed to ban guns in those spaces.

One student stated that she would not have come to UT if she had known that SB11 was a possibility and asked what kind of options graduate students who have just commenced their doctorates are left with, and whether her only remaining option now is to withdraw completely from PhD process. Another graduate student questioned the logic of the recommendations that guns should be prohibited from laboratories but not classrooms:  If it is not safe to have guns in labs, why is it okay in classrooms? Isn’t “accidental discharge” equally concerning in a class full of students? Another GSA representative explained that it was becoming apparent that graduate students and others concerned about SB11 are not being heard on this issue –  especially with regards to the Working Group’s recommendations – and stated that a group of graduate students are prepared to engage in acts of civil disobedience.

Last Wednesday’s event follows a steady march of recent activity among graduate students at UT Austin in the campus carry debate, and precedes the anticipated release in February of campus carry policy recommendations by President Gregory Fenves. Several public forums were well attended by graduate students in the Fall.  On December 1st, 1,789 graduate and professional students across 132 programs in 18 Colleges and Schools wrote a public letter to President Fenves outlining their opposition to guns in classrooms at UT-Austin. In early December, the Legislative Affairs Committee hosted a campus carry conversation, inviting graduate students in particular to express their concerns and ask questions about SB 11. This conversation, and the forums that preceded it, led the Legislative Affairs Committee to issue two open letters on campus carry to President Fenves, which the committee delivered in person on December 9th, 2016. The first, An Open Letter Expressing Opposition to Firearms in UT Classrooms expressed opposition to handguns in classrooms, while the second, An Open Letter Addressing Graduate Student Questions on Campus Carry, raised serious questions and concerns regarding the specific details of implementing campus carry, beginning August 1.

Until last week, the GSA had not discussed legislation concerning SB11 since before it was signed into law, in June of 2015. This stands in stark contrast to the Faculty Council at UT Austin, which has already passed two separate resolutions, both of which outline opposition to guns in classrooms. Getting the GSA to pass a resolution now is key, especially as Fenves is due to make his decision by mid February – there may not be another chance for the GSA to pass a resolution on behalf of concerned graduate students. Will our GSA be able to reverse the current trend toward inaction, and deliver a strong statement concerning campus carry that represents UT Austin’s graduate and professional students’ voices? If you help us by participating in our direct action Wednesday, at the very least, the GSA will be required to engage with and consider the collective voice of the graduate student body that it promises to represent.

CONTACT

Coordinators for: UT Graduate Students Against Classroom Carry utgrads.oppose.campuscarry@gmail.com

For more information about Campus Carry visit Gun Free UT and access the Graduate Student Petition here.

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