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GUN FREE UT – ENOUGH! MONDAYS

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Join with us to protest the continuing tidal wave of gun violence enveloping our country. We refuse to normalize this. On Mondays we gather at noon at the statue of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on the East Mall of the University of Texas Campus. We stand vigil in memory of the victims of gun violence, to hold our leaders to account for their inaction on this critical issue, and make visible our continued resistance. Inspired by Rev. William Barber’s Moral Mondays, by the Mothers of the Plaza del Mayo, by Thich Nhat Hanh’s nonviolent protests against the war in Vietnam, by Moms Demand Action Against Gun Violence, by Cocks Not Glocks, by Black Lives Matter, by the brave students organizing across the country right now, and so many more.

Armed with reason and compassion, we will create a zone of peace.
Join us.  #GunFreeUT #Enough #GunFreeMondays

Bring your lunch, your signs, wear your GFUT T-shirts (or something orange) and join us!

WHERE: MLK Statue on the East Mall
WHEN:   Mondays from noon to 1pm
Facebook Event to Share 

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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

event, student, take action!

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!

campus carry toolkit, take action!

Sample Talking Points

This series was originally published in Huffington Post as an article titled  How To Get Guns Off Campuses: A Call To Action!

We will be publishing this series over the next few days. This is Part 5 and the final part.

Sample Talking Points Against Campus Carry, Against Pro-Campus-Carry-Related Legislation, and in Favor of Opt Out.

(Originally published by Aron Weinberg as an Appendix to Huffington Post Article How to Get Guns Off Campuses: A Call to Action)

  • History. The framers of The Bill of Rights never intended for the 2nd Amendment to be practiced on campuses. When James Madison and Thomas Jefferson founded the University of Virginia, they forbid firearms on campus.

Continue reading Sample Talking Points →

faculty comments

The Many Costs of Campus Carry

Link

Excellent article in the New Yorker, by UT professor  Minkah Makalani

It begins —

When I was growing up, in Kansas City, Missouri, I didn’t know anyone who had gone to college. No one in my family had ever gone; almost everyone found work in the city’s ever-growing service sector, learned a trade, or joined the military. College seemed like a good idea, though I knew as much about how to get there as I did how to pilot a space shuttle. What little I knew about college life I gleaned from the TV series “A Different World.” From the exploits of the math whiz Dwayne Wayne and the Southern belle Whitley Gilbert at Hillman College I understood that, whatever it got right or wrong, college offered two things: a place where you could debate ideas, and a place where there were no guns.

Read the article here

campus carry toolkit, history, take action!

A Primer on Campus Carry

This series was originally published in Huffington Post as an article titled  How To Get Guns Off Campuses: A Call To Action!

We will be publishing this series over the next few days. This is Part 4.

The below primer, which can also serve as a general resource, provides an overview of facts, figures, and arguments against campus carry from which talking points could be formulated:

  • History. The framers of The Bill of Rights never intended for the 2nd Amendment (1791) to apply to campuses. When Thomas Jefferson and James Madison founded the University of Virginia, they forbid student from carrying firearms on campus. In fact, the fundamental individual right to bear arms under the 2nd Amendment was only established federally in 2008 (DC vs. Heller). The ruling recognized “Like most rights, the 2nd Amendment is not unlimited,” failing to assert this fundamental right in “sensitive places, such as schools and government buildings.” Although Texas is only required to follow statutory minimums established by the U.S. Supreme Court, neither DC vs. Heller nor any other U.S. Supreme Court ruling has ever asserted this fundamental right in public, let alone on campuses and in classrooms.
  • Pro-campus-carry argument. Somewhat ironically, the main public proponents of this legislation, Students for Concealed Carry, don’t argue for campus carry under the 2nd Amendment. Aside from practical reasons for supporting the law, at least currently on their website SCC’s epistemology is based on the idea that “self-defense is a human right.” Some may question, however, whether the exercise of this human right in university classrooms should necessarily includes handguns.

Continue reading A Primer on Campus Carry →

take action!

A Call to Action!

This series was originally published in Huffington Post as an article titled  How To Get Guns Off Campuses: A Call To Action!

We will be publishing this series over the next few days. This is Part 3.

In order to continue being effective, the unprecedented grassroots campaign and protest that has emerged against campus carry in Texas over the last year should consider re-examining how resources are distributed within the movement and devote significant energy towards opening a “new chapter” to complement its current activities: the legislative action chapter. The reason for this partial shift is simple. If we don’t, we’re not going to get very much accomplished.

If you haven’t previously worked on campus carry during a Texas Legislative Session, or haven’t read the the seminal 2008 RAND study evaluating on-the-street shooting accuracy of the NYC Police Department (preview: it’s not so good) – a category that includes most of us – the rest of this albeit quite long article is highly recommended to help prepare us for what will not be an easy fight.

In Texas, here’s the rub. The time to act is now. To change laws in Texas, or block new harmful proposals, the fight has to be taken to the Texas Legislature, which only meets for 140 days every odd calendar year. This means starting in mid-January, 2017, there’s a window until May 29th, 2017 to influence legislative outcomes that won’t appear again until mid-January 2019.

If you already have a chapter against campus carry at your university or community college and want to work on campus carry in the Texas Legislature, you’ll need to get organized. If you don’t have a chapter, but want to get involved, you’ll have to start one and find other student leaders and organizations in your campus community that would be interested in joining you.

Although some of the below applies to Texas specifically, many of the issues involved in bringing handguns into campuses and classrooms do not. Some of the below information might therefore be helpful to readers working against campus carry in other states.

Lawmakers may find the sections on “Statistics on Texas Handgun Licensees” and “Training of Texas Handgun Licensees” helpful to inform their own work since a fair portion of this information was never introduced during deliberations over SB11 or for other campus carry bills introduced during the last four biennial legislative sessions (i.e. 2009-2015).

  1. Overall Goals

There are at least two immediate goals for the 2017 Texas State Legislative session:

There is at least one eventual goal:

Keep in mind, in the service of both immediate and eventual goals, our aim as campus communities is not to get guns out of Texas. It is only to get guns off our campuses, and primarily out of our buildings and classrooms.

  1. How to Prepare for the 2017 Texas State Legislative session

Continue reading A Call to Action! →

history, take action!

A Brief History of Guns on Campuses and Campus Carry in Texas

This series was originally published in Huffington Post as an article titled  How To Get Guns Off Campuses: A Call To Action!

We will be publishing this series over the next few days. This is Part 2.

In 2008, galvanized by the Virginia Tech Massacre the year before, the National Rifle Association (NRA) and American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) developed a model bill to spread so-called “campus carry” across the country, asserting the right and need for communities of higher learning throughout America to arm themselves under the 2nd Amendment. In retrospect, at least, it was not a particularly surprising move. Although in the 1920’s and 30’s, during which the 2nd Amendment was still conventionally viewed in America as fundamentally a “collective” not “individual” right, the NRA helped write and lobby for the first federal firearm regulation laws, after a historic coup within the organization in 1977 transformed a group focused on hunting and marksmanship into a “2nd Amendment activism group” with one of the most wealthy and influential lobbying arms in the country, the NRA had worked to wheedle away many of the “tyrannical” gun laws and regulations its previous membership had supported. In 2008, guns in colleges and universities became just another item on a state-by-state and federal “guns everywhere” agenda that included allowing guns into bars, opposing modest gun-safety laws that have been shown to save lives, and opposing mandatory background checks for all gun purchases that would make it more difficult for criminals to purchase firearms. Continue reading A Brief History of Guns on Campuses and Campus Carry in Texas →

campus carry toolkit, take action!

How To Get Guns Off Campuses: A Call To Action!

This series was originally published in Huffington Post as an article titled  How To Get Guns Off Campuses: A Call To Action!

We will be publishing this series over the next few days.

Overview

A Brief History of Guns on Campuses and Campus Carry in Texas
A Call to Action
A Primer on Campus Carry
Sample Talking Points

Conclusion
The 2nd Amendment and campus carry can be touchy subjects. Try to be respectful of the viewpoints of other people and groups, such as those of Students for Concealed Carry, even if you don’t agree with them.

Don’t forget to vote this November 8th!

It is our hope that this series can serve as a starting point for a collaborative effort against campus carry in Texas. We hope to see you along the way! Continue reading How To Get Guns Off Campuses: A Call To Action! →

updates

Professors Carter, Glass and Moore nominated for Civitatis Award

Civitatis Award Nomination
Professors Mia Carter, Jennifer Glass, and Lisa Moore

October 7, 2016

I nominate three outstanding faculty colleagues for the 2016 Civitatis Award: Professors Mia Carter, Jennifer Glass, and Lisa Moore. Although the Civitatis Award is usually given to an individual faculty member, the joint efforts of these three professors warrant this special recognition. (I received approval for making this multiple nomination from Dr. Hillary Hart, Secretary of the Faculty Council.)

The Civitatis Award is given “in recognition of dedicated and meritorious service to the University above and beyond the regular expectations of teaching, research, and writing.” These three distinguished professors have proven their “above and beyond” dedication to the University through their opposition to concealed handguns on our campus. Their courage in speaking out against the campus carry law attests to their overwhelming commitment to the safety and wellbeing of students, faculty, and staff at the University.

In his State of the University Address, President Fenves noted that on the issue of “campus carry, where many passionately disagree, we have had an open and constructive debate where all voices were heard,” and he thanked the University community for their efforts in this regard. Professors Carter, Glass, and Moore deserve to be singled out for our gratitude. It is because of their tireless and ongoing work that the interests of the vast majority in our community have been represented in this debate.

Citizenship requires sacrifice. These three professors, all nationally-recognized scholars, have sacrificed their time and energy to make the University a better place. They are standing up for what they believe is best for our community, even at considerable personal and professional risk. Their actions inspire pride among alumni, faculty, staff and students, and offer hope to everyone opposed to the proliferation of firearms on college campuses. The Civitatis Award is a fitting tribute for their meritorious service.

Sincerely,

Christine L. Williams Professor of Sociology

The following UT Chairs, Directors, and Dean emailed me in support of this nomination:

Kamran Aghaie, Chair, Department of Middle Eastern Studies
Jossianna Arroyo-Martínez, Chair, Department of Spanish and Portuguese Robert Crosnoe, Chair, Department of Sociology
Elizabeth Cullingford, Chair, Department of English
Andrew Dillon, Dean, School of Information
Anthony Di Fiore, Chair, Department of Anthropology
Steven Friesen, Chair, Department of Religious Studies
Susan Heinzelman, Director, Center for Women’s and Gender Studies Richard Meier, Chair, Department of Linguistics
Jacqueline Woolley, Chair, Department of Psychology
Mary Neuburger, Chair, Department of Slavic and Eurasian Studies
Martha Selby, Chair, Department of Asian Studies
Debra Umberson, Director, Population Research Center

Download Civitatis Nomination