November 24, 2015
We, the undersigned members of the Marketing Department at the McCombs School of Business, oppose having guns in classrooms. We fear that armed students in a classroom will make people less safe and will impede the free exchange of ideas. Continue reading Marketing Department Statement against Campus Carry
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: media@gunfreeut.org
Downloadable file: GFUT press Nov. 25
GUN-FREE UT: POLITICIANS MUST FOLLOW PROCESS OUTLINED IN SB11 ALLOWING UNIVERSITIES TO DECIDE WHERE GUNS BELONG ON CAMPUS
AUSTIN, TX, November 25, 2015 — Following a unanimous vote by UT-Austin’s Faculty Council to oppose concealed firearms in classrooms and other educational spaces, Sen. Brian Birdwell (R-Granbury), lead author of SB11, has asked Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to review key aspects of the law. At stake is whether public university presidents around Texas may designate many, if not most, campus buildings as gun-free.
“The law is clear; Sen. Birdwell wrote it,” says Bryan D. Jones, the J.J. “Jake” Pickle Chair in Congressional Studies at UT-Austin and a prominent member of Gun-Free UT. “He and the Attorney General should follow the processes set out in the law, as well as those governing the university.”
Known as Campus Carry, SB11 requires public universities to allow concealed firearms into buildings, grounds and transport vehicles. In a letter to the Attorney General, Birdwell claims that the law was written to allow concealed handguns “everywhere” on campus, and asks Paxton to issue an opinion on how universities should implement the law in advance of their own determinations.
As written, the law requires university presidents to consult “with students, staff, and faculty” to establish “reasonable rules, regulations, or other provisions” for bringing concealed firearms on campuses, as long as those rules don’t “generally prohibit or have the effect of generally prohibiting” license holders from carrying concealed guns on campus. University Presidents or CEOs must also consider “the nature of the student population, specific safety considerations, and the uniqueness of the campus environment.”
In recent weeks, legal experts and politicians have weighed in on this issue and determined that the law, as written, gives university presidents wide latitude in determining which campus buildings can be gun-free zones. This latitude was, in fact, an eleventh-hour addition that allowed the law to pass.
A memorandum produced by legal counsel for Gun-Free UT notes that legal precedents don’t equate partial or complete restrictions of guns in academic buildings with a general prohibition on guns. The memo also notes that the University’s Handbook of Operating Procedures mandates that “policies pertaining to the general academic and welfare [of the university] must be approved by the University’s Faculty Council or its General Faculty, or both.”
“No constituency of the University wants guns in university buildings,” says Max Snodderly, professor of Neuroscience and Nutritional Sciences at UT-Austin. “Students don’t want them, faculty don’t want them, staff don’t want them, and parents don’t want them. The president and the chancellor don’t want them. Who exactly does Birdwell represent?”
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Gun-Free UTwas founded in August 2015 by faculty, students, staff, parents and alumni from UT-Austin following the passage of Senate Bill 11. Since then, Gun-Free UT has become a statewide movement, garnering national and international attention. Thousands at UT campuses from El Paso to the Rio Grande Valley to Tyler have joined in to fight to keep concealed firearms out of dorms, classrooms and offices.
For more information on Gun-FreeUT’s legal position, click here .
The Graduate Student Art History Association (GSAHA) at the University of Texas at Austin stands with the faculty and staff of the Art and Art History department in opposing the implementation of Texas SB11. We believe sanctioning concealed handguns on our campus will be intellectually, physically, and emotionally detrimental to our community. As graduate students, we assume greater levels of risk as we are both students and staff, acting as graders, museum and gallery interns, research assistants, teaching assistants, and assistant instructors. Moreover, most of us are women and many of us are from marginalized communities–groups that are disproportionately victims of gun violence. Indeed, Texas SB11 institutionalizes violence in our society, endowing a huge and grossly unrepresentative portion of the civilian population to have rule over the life and death of others.
Allowing firearms on campus will stunt the academic rigor of our classrooms. Largely object-based, the discipline of art history requires in-depth visual analyses and critical deliberation of art objects. We closely examine objects to discuss and interpret what we see in an effort to understand and appreciate the world views and value systems of past and present civilizations as expressed through their visual cultures. Whether familiar or foreign, these objects have the power to incite strong emotions in viewers. Therefore, cultural understanding and sensitivity are required in our classroom discussions; and educators and students must feel supported, encouraged, and safe to express their views. This is fundamental to our practice as art historians and, thus, it is critical to our academic success. The threat of gun violence in the classroom will intimidate both educators and students. It will hinder free speech and narrow the intellectual scope of the classroom.
In addition, concealed weapons on campus will put women and marginalized communities at increased risk of harm and act as a constant threat of violence. Colleges and universities are places where educated women, ethnic minorities, immigrants, and LGBTQIA communities often question, examine, and dismantle systems of power and inequity. It is these very demographic populations who are most likely to be the victims of targeted violence. In fact, homicide is the second most likely way for women to die in the workplace, after car accidents. The Art History graduate student body values our diverse identifications of gender, race, nationality, religion, and sexuality; and we denounce intimidation of and violence against women and marginalized peoples.
Lastly, we are concerned about the impact of sanctioned concealed handgun carry on the well-being of students, staff, and faculty who suffer from mental health disorders. Tragically familiar with the intersection of mental illness and academia, the Art and Art History department has been affected by two suicides in the last six years. The concealed carry law will allow guns in dormitories and classrooms; this increased access to firearms is a danger to those who suffer from depression or other mental health issues, especially those with thoughts of suicide. Students are under a lot of pressure, especially at the flagship University of Texas at Austin, and an overwhelming number suffer from depression. Unfortunately, there is a direct correlation between access to firearms and increased suicide, with guns being the most lethal means.
Recognizing that the law is now in its implementation stage, we ask the President of the University to establish broad exclusionary zones in which guns are banned on campus including classrooms, faculty and teaching assistant offices, graduate student lounges, all libraries and dormitories, all performance halls and sports complexes, on-campus daycare and other child education centers, buildings that include health services, and any building where alcohol is served. Continue reading Graduate Student Art History Association Statement on Campus Carry
We represent the members of the Graduate Coordinator Network (GCN), and we are extremely concerned about the implementation of S.B. 11 at The University of Texas at Austin. As Graduate Coordinators, we often serve as the first point of contact for graduate students seeking assistance for a variety of academic and non-academic issues. Graduate students, even more than undergraduates, typically experience a great deal of stress; not only are the academic demands placed on them arduous, they often face financial instability, which not infrequently impacts their family relationships. As a result, we Graduate Coordinators often find ourselves in volatile situations, faced with angry, depressed, and sometimes unstable students. Knowing that these students might be carrying a gun when they enter our offices is not only frightening, but potentially dangerous. We urge you to include the offices of Graduate Coordinators and other student advisors as part of the “gun-free” zone that will be established on campus.
Thank you for considering our request. We look forward to working with you in an effort to not only maintain the academic integrity of our campus but to keep it as safe an environment as possible. Continue reading Graduate Coordinator Network Statement on Campus Carry S.B. 11
Bryan Jones
J.J. ‘Jake’ Pickle Regents’ Chair in Congressional Studies
Department of Government
I am a gun-owning, former member of the NRA pickup driving UT professor. I got my first .22 at around age 12. I grew up in what might be called gun culture in the Deep South. But I oppose guns in the workplace. Especially the academic workplace.
SO let me give you the TOP TEN reasons I OPPOSE CAMPUS CARRY.
10. AS A SOUTHERNER, I RESPECT THE SOUTHERN GUN CULTURE. I respect the Southern gun culture I learned as a boy in South Alabama. It is light years from the “carry everywhere to intimidate” culture of today.
9. AS A SOCIAL SCIENTIST, I RESPECT EVIDENCE. I teach my students in public policy about EVIDENCE-BASED policy-making. Research in reputable peer-reviewed journals is NOT KIND to the idea that somehow we are SAFER with more guns.
8. AS A CONCERNED CITIZEN, I KNOW THAT ACCIDENTS WILL HAPPEN. There will be accidents in which concealed carry permit holders shoot themselves or others. In the last couple of weeks, a guy in a theater who just got his permit shot himself—and thoroughly disrupted the movie as he screamed “I shot myself!” A woman in Houston accidentally shot the woman she brought to the hospital.
7. AS A MEMBER OF THE UT COMMUNITY, I AM CONCERNED ABOUT CAMPUS SAFETY. I am especially concerned about our STUDENTS and STAFF, and in particular the possibility of SUICIDES and SEXUAL assaults (which have risen in Colorado and Utah after campus carry laws were passed).
6. AS A TEACHER, I FEAR CLASSROOM PANIC. An accidental or deliberate discharge of a gun in a crowded classroom can set off a rush for the exits, causing injuries and maybe deaths.
5. AS A COMMITTED DEFENDER OF THE LESS POWERFUL, I AM DISGUSTED THAT GUNS ARE USED TO BULLY AND INTIMIDATE. That is what they are designed to do. Did you see the group of white, middle aged, and very out of shape men along the President’s route in Oregon, after the community college mass shooting there? Those guys had such spectacular beer bellies that they couldn’t even see their guns!
4. AS A UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR, I RESPECT THE ACADEMIC WORKPLACE. OUR WORKPLACE IS DESIGNED TO TEST IDEAS IN THE ABSENCE OF SUCH INTIMIDATION. It is designed to explore the diversity of ideas, and there is no place for intimidation. Can you imagine an open discussion in a public policy class on gun control? Or on anything else that might offend the carriers in the class?
3. AS A LAW-ABIDING CITIZEN, I RESPECT LAW AND ORDER AND THE POLICE. Research shows that looser gun control laws lead to MORE shootings of police. Police are TRAINED in crisis response. A few hours of coursework for a concealed carry permit is NO SUBSTITUTE for police professionalism.
2. AS A STUDENT OF PUBLIC POLICY, I KNOW THAT IT WILL NOT STOP HERE, WITH LIMITED CAMPUS CARRY. The gun crowd will be back next legislative session, and while our actions as faculty, staff, and students may be easily dismissed, if we continue to raise awareness AND work hard to BROADEN OUR COALITION, we WILL make progress!
1. AS A PERSON WHO HAS A SENSE OF HUMOR, I FIND IT GREAT FUN TO SEE THE GUN CROWD SO AGITATED ABOUT OUR EXERCISE IN FREE SPEECH!
This memorandum from the Campaign to Keep Guns Off Campus describes why banning guns from classrooms should be permissible under the Texas “campus carry” law SB 11. It also provides a legal basis for including faculty governing bodies such as the UT Faculty Council in all deliberations. Use of a special task force is not a substitute for the normal university governance procedures because implementation of the law should be considered an academic matter.
Amended and Endorsed by the Faculty Council
November 16, 2015
The Mission of The University of Texas at Austin is to achieve excellence in “undergraduate education, graduate education, research and public service [and to] contribute to the advancement of society through research, creative activity, scholarly inquiry and the development of new knowledge.” The Faculty Council asserts that the University cannot fulfill this mission if guns are allowed in educational facilities. We believe that by creating an uneasy and potentially hostile environment for intellectual inquiry, guns in educational spaces impede learning, honest evaluation, and academic freedom. Guns in campus buildings also jeopardize the quality and reputation of the University by hurting recruitment and retention of faculty, staff, and students. Therefore, the Faculty Council strongly opposes allowing guns in The University of Texas at Austin classrooms, laboratories, residence halls, university offices, and other spaces of education.
General Faculty and Faculty Council
We, the faculty, staff, and graduate students in the Department of Art and Art History in the College of Fine Arts, strongly oppose the presence of guns in classrooms, laboratories, offices, and social spaces on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin.
Many departments can argue for exclusion from Campus Carry SB11 (and we teach in small groups and in large lecture halls, in darkened rooms and laboratories), but as concerned as we are for our own safety and that of our students, we are more concerned about how this law undermines the very basis of what we teach. As professionals engaged with the visual arts, we teach that objects are not neutral, in terms of either value or significance. We educate our students to recognize the embodiment of relationships of authority and power in objects and images. Moreover, cultural and social contexts shape meaning and power relationships between individuals; guns in classrooms, laboratories, or offices signify differently from guns in wartime, police work, or at ranges, and they perpetuate the power dynamics at play in those spheres.
We stand in solidarity with groups on our campus who areaffected disproportionately by violence, including communities of color, women, individuals living with disabilities and members of the LGBTQIA community. Continue reading Department of Art and Art History Statement on Campus Carry
As faculty fellows invited to spend the year hosted by the Institute for Historical Studies in the Department of History, we’ve joined your community for the year in order participate in the larger system efforts to make what Chancellor McRaven calls a “Quantum Leap” forward in the quality of intellectual life in the state. Since the Institute was established in 2007, it has brought together fellows like us from around the country and the world, building a reputation in a competitive environment as a unique center for creative historical work that enhances the lives of faculty and students on campus. Interaction with the UT community distinguishes this fellowship from opportunities at other universities and centers.
But that distinction is dulled by the recent policy facilitating the ability of individuals to carry handguns onto campus. Each of us hails from public institutions in states that respect citizens’ basic constitutional rights. None of us has to confront colleagues, students or staff carrying guns in our home institutions nor would we at most other sites hosting fellows in the discipline of History.
We wish to add our voice to those of students, faculty, staff and families who oppose any interpretation of Second Amendment rights to extend to carrying arms into classrooms and spaces of learning, and any implementation of campus-carry laws that undermine the maintenance of a safe, free intellectual community, one that continues to attract talented teachers and researchers. Continue reading Fellows at the Institute for Historical Studies Concerns about Campus Carry
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