statements by departments, students and professional organizations

Statement of the Faculty of the School of Architecture on Senate Bill 11

The undersigned faculty of the School of Architecture at The University of Texas at Austin strongly oppose Senate Bill 11 (the “campus carry” bill) that is scheduled to go into effect August 1, 2016.

We believe that there is no reasonable justification for permitting concealed guns to be taken into classrooms, faculty offices and other advising or review spaces in our school. There is no evidence that the presence of concealed weapons in classrooms or other university buildings promotes student safety. There are serious reasons to believe that allowing firearms into our buildings will increase stress, anxiety, and the risk of violent events.

Our fundamental commitment as teachers is to create classroom, studio and advising environments of trust and openness. The School of Architecture employs a unique process for the evaluation of student work. Learning and developing the professional skills unique to the design and planning professions occurs through intense discourse, debate, and open critique. Student work is presented and publicly critiqued by reviewers from within the school along with reviewers invited from other universities or from architecture or planning offices. This is a very intense process where students, often tired and stressed, are exposed to public evaluation and criticism. Allowing firearms to be carried at these public reviews would create risks and would fundamentally change the nature and quality of the review process.

The School of Architecture includes several nationally ranked programs. In addition to the risks to our pedagogical culture described above, allowing weapons to be carried in our buildings would seriously undermine our ability to recruit top students from across the country, to recruit leading scholars and designers to join our faculty, and to secure reviewers from outside our institution who are leaders in the fields represented in our school. Continue reading Statement of the Faculty of the School of Architecture on Senate Bill 11 →

updates

GunFreeUT has retained local counsel

GunFreeUT has retained local counsel and we will be represented by the National Lawyers Guild.

We are also consulting with attorneys with the Campaign to Keep Guns off Campus who have expertise in fighting back against campus carry in other jurisdictions.

Once the administration announces its policy, we will evaluate our legal options.

statements by departments, students and professional organizations

National Academic Associations Oppose Campus Carry!

November 12, 2015

The horrific shootings at Umpqua Community College in Oregon and subsequent incidents of gun violence elsewhere have prompted renewed efforts to keep our colleges and universities both safe and open. One measure increasingly proposed is legislation already approved in eight states—that would allow any licensed gun owner to carry concealed weapons on campus. Advocates of such so-called “campus carry” legislation contend that the presence of weapons in classrooms and other campus facilities will deter those seeking to wreak violence. Oregon is one state where “campus carry” is legal, but that did not prevent the tragedy. Colleges and universities closely control firearms and prohibit concealed guns on their campuses because they regard the presence of weapons as incompatible with their educational missions. College campuses are marketplaces of ideas, and a rigorous academic exchange of ideas may be chilled by the presence of weapons. Students and faculty members will not be comfortable discussing controversial subjects if they think there might be a gun in the room.

William McRaven, chancellor for the University of Texas system and a former member of the Navy SEALs who rose to the rank of admiral, opposed passage of “campus carry” legislation in his state. “I feel the presence of concealed weapons will make a campus a less safe environment,” he said. “If you have guns on campus, I question whether or not that will somehow inhibit our freedom of speech. If you’re in a heated debate with somebody in the middle of a classroom and you don’t know whether or not that
individual is carrying, how does that inhibit the interaction between students and faculty?”

The undersigned organizations strongly support efforts to make college campuses as safe and weapon free as possible for students, faculty, staff, parents, and community members. We therefore oppose efforts to enact “campus carry” laws and call for their repeal where they already exist. We encourage colleges and universities to embrace critical incident planning that includes faculty and staff and to advise all faculty and staff of these plans. We further call on these institutions to rely on trained and equipped professional law-enforcement personnel to respond to emergency incidents. State legislative bodies must refrain from interfering with decisions that are properly the responsibility of the academic
community.

Signatories

American Association of University Professors
American Federation of Teachers
Association of American Colleges and Universities
Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges

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statements by departments, students and professional organizations

Department of Curriculum and Instruction

November 9, 2015

We the undersigned members of the faculty in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, College of Education, strongly oppose the Campus Carry Legislation. As teacher educators and researchers on teaching and learning, we are deeply concerned about the potential silencing of academic discussion and inquiry that the presence of dangerous weapons in classrooms will have. Education can only occur in a safe space. Positive learning communities are built upon trust, safety, openness to ideas, and freedom from intimidation or retaliation. We hope the legislature will reconsider this policy and allow us to foster learning and inquiry in a gun-free environment. Continue reading Department of Curriculum and Instruction →

statements by departments, students and professional organizations

Business, Government & Society Department

November 10, 2015

We the undersigned faculty members of the Business, Government & Society Department believe that the best evidence clearly indicates that the proliferation of guns in our society has made people less safe and that the presence of more guns on campus would similarly make UT a less safe place for students, faculty, and staff.  This is the view of a strong majority of the faculty members in the BGS Department. Continue reading Business, Government & Society Department →

event, faculty comments

Remarks from a Gun-Free UT Rally

MiaMia Carter, Department of English

The passing of Senate Bill 11 was a victory for the NRA and gun lobby, primarily; it only further disseminates the belief that we should live in fear, should live in fear of each other, that danger is omnipresent and that our fears legitimize the presence of guns absolutely everywhere in U.S. society. It’s a perfect self-fulfilling prophecy and a calculating marketing policy: fear begets fear; fear sells guns. A violent mass-shooting incident generates more fear, and the advertisers of the “more guns will protect you and the ones you love” myth–for it is a myth–and its sincerely frightened true-believers, advocate for the further expansion of gun culture. None of the available research supports the argument that more guns equals more safety and protection; more guns have been proven to lead to an increase in accidents, deaths, suicides, acts of rape and domestic violence, and injury of individuals and their loved ones.

Why do our national political leaders keep outlawing funding for the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) collection of statistical information about gun incidents in this country? Because facts and statistical information could be used to make policy changes, because the damage caused by the abundance of guns in our country would be made vivid, made visible in ways that resonate far, far beyond the spectacular horrors of these truly terrible and horrific mass shootings. All of the weekly, hourly, daily little gun-related tragedies would also be visible.

Professors and graduate instructors, counselors and student advisors deal with conflict regularly. Conflict over grades and comments on papers, over content in classes, over curriculum requirements and graduation eligibility; it is habitual. Teachers also sometimes have to mediate conflicts between students–and we see a lot of student depression, anxiety, personal crisis, and suicidal thinking. With Senate Bill 11, the abundant possibilities for violently ramping-up these kinds of encounters become truly terrifying.

The most tragic thing about the bill is that public colleges and universities are one of the most important institutions in our shared cultural life and one of the very few places left in the United States where people are encouraged to think critically together, to take risks, to engage productively in dialogue and debate. Challenging each other and our own cherished beliefs and values is a fundamental part of education; being exposed to a diversity of opinions and beliefs encourages growth and refined thinking. There is a kind healthy dynamism in intellectual reflection, and rational and thoughtful conflict is part of that. A gun in the room would destroy altogether that scholarly safe space of exploration, self-discovery, interchange, debate, and healthy exposure to dissenting points of view. Our rich and ever-evolving university community, and the very notion of community in this country is under attack. Our administrators and the citizens of Texas should make our elected officials address the abundant research that is readily available to them and urge them to state their rationale to the citizens of Texas and the world: why MUST we have guns in our classroom? We are a fact-based community. Address the research and explain, please. 

According to the Houston Chronicle’s reporter Lauren McGaughy (“UT Faculty Lawyers up ahead of campus carry deadline” 11/09/15), Open Carry Texas head and state senate candidate CJ Grisham had a message for UT faculty opposed to campus carry: just quit: “Quit your jobs and walk away,” he reportedly wrote on his group’s Facebook page.

We are here today to say we will not quit; we will not let our serious professional and public health concerns silence us or enfold us in the delusional worldview of the more guns means more safety crowd. We are afraid, and highly distressed, but we are going to fight like hell. We will lawyer-up; we will act-out and cock-up; we will fight-on and speak-up; we will, like the mighty football players did at the University of Missouri, stand together strongly, knowing that our fight is for the common good, and for a healthy, safe, and vibrant University of Texas.

statements by departments, students and professional organizations

Department of Religious Studies Statement about Concealed Weapons

We, the undersigned members of the Department of Religious Studies, oppose the presence of concealed weapons in our classrooms, offices, and departmental spaces. We are convinced that concealed weapons will have a detrimental effect on the free expression of ideas, and we reject the notion that the presence of concealed weapons in university buildings will make us safer. Scholars of religion study ideas and phenomena that can arouse strong emotions. Our classrooms and offices should be safe environments for discussion and debate and places where we and our students can address controversial topics without the fear of violence that the presence of concealed weapons can elicit. Continue reading Department of Religious Studies Statement about Concealed Weapons →

press release, updates

Gun-Free UT Announcement 11-9-2015

Contact: media@gunfreeut.org
Downloadable File:  Gun-Free UT Announcement 11-9-15

AUSTIN, TX, November 9, 2015 —  Gun-Free UT will hold a rally against Campus Carry on Tuesday, November 10, from noon to 1:00pm at the West Mall on the UT-Austin campus. The event will feature live music, various speakers, including survivors of gun violence, and a special appearance by Danielle Vabner, a UT student whose brother died in the Sandy Hook massacre.

Founded in August 2015 by a handful of professors following the passage of Senate Bill 11, also known as Campus Carry, Gun-Free UT has quickly grown into a statewide movement, with thousands at UT campuses from El Paso to Tyler joining in the effort to fight the presence of concealed firearms in dorms, classrooms and offices.

At UT-Austin, the number of departments and colleges publicly opposing the law, now at 28, is growing daily. Among the latest to join the Gun-Free UT effort is the Department of Chemical Engineering. According to their public statement, “We believe that guns in classrooms, laboratories, faculty/advising offices, and collaboration spaces would be unsafe and stifle the free exchange of ideas central to a world-class university…We also fear that SB11 may damage our ability to recruit and retain the most capable students, faculty and staff.”

Beginning on August 1, 2016, Campus Carry will allow holders of concealed handgun licenses to enter any public university buildings in Texas with a concealed firearm, unless the building is officially a gun-free zone. To that end, Gun-Free UT is working to ensure safety of all students, staff and faculty by requesting that UT-Austin President Greg Fenves designate all buildings on campus as gun-free zones. As acknowledged by Steve Goode, chair of the UT Campus Carry Working Group, which is currently debating how to designate gun-free zones on campus, the vast majority of the UT community opposes Campus Carry.

Gun-Free UT is a grassroots organization of UT-Austin students, staff, faculty, parents & alumni dedicated to opposing guns on campus and to keeping them out of dorms, classrooms and offices.

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take action!

Actions You Can Take Right Now

Send your comments to the UT Austin Campus Carry Working Group ASAP.  Submit your comments here.  The working group will submit their recommendations in December, so get your comments in now.

Sign a Petition.  Find our petitions

Make a public statement with you department, office or organization in opposition to allowing guns in classrooms, offices and dorms.  Examples of the many groups that have already made public statements are  here

Let the media know what you think  Write letters to the press and post messages on blogs, discussion threads, Facebook and Twitter

Post a “No Guns Allowed” sign outside any space that you manage on campus.This is legal until the date the law takes effect: August 1, 2016.  Find examples here

Write Letters:

Continue reading Actions You Can Take Right Now →

event, take action!

Rally Tuesday November 10th

We had a great turn-out. You can read all about it in the Media Coverage section of this website.

Mia Carter’s speech is published here.

Pictures coming soon

 

Tuesday, November 10, noon-1
The Free Speech Area at West Mall, UT Campus

Here’s hoping to see a HUGE turn-out tomorrow on West Mall. The  Free Speech area is right next to the  side of the Tower that faces Guadalupe at UT.

We’ve got a sweet line up of students speaking, including the sister of one of the Newton kids who died at Sandy Hook Elementary.
Wear your ORANGE Gun-Free UT t-shirt if you got one, if you don’t you can get one there $10, $6 for students

It’s time to pushback against gun violence!

The eyes of the world are on Texas — Let’s show them UT students, staff, parents and faculty say NO to guns on campus!

Facebook Event for the Rally