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

faculty comments, myth busters

Texas Just Made College Less Safe

Excerpts from “Texas Just Made College Less Safe” by Matt Valentine, Published in Politico Magazine, June 1, 2015:

When the founding fathers wrote that the right to bear arms “shall not be infringed,” did they mean guns must be allowed everywhere, even in classrooms and dorm rooms? The University of Virginia Board of Visitors took up the issue of campus carry in 1824, and didn’t have to look far for an originalist perspective—Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were in attendance. The board resolved that “No Student shall, within the precincts of the University … keep or use weapons or arms of any kind, or gunpowder.”

This year, the Texas legislature took a different tack, and voted to allow faculty, staff, visitors and students over age 21 to carry concealed handguns on college campuses in the state, provided they have a license. (In the 2013 legislative session, Texas reduced the training requirement for a concealed handgun license from 10 hours of instruction to just four. License applicants must also demonstrate the ability to hit human-sized, stationary targets at distances of 3 to 15 yards, with 70 percent accuracy.) …

William McRaven, chancellor of the University of Texas System,  wrote to state representatives in April, warning them that campus carry could adversely affect faculty recruitment. In a nationally representative poll of college presidents, 95 percent said they oppose measures to allow concealed carry on campus…

Those who want to arm educators often cite the example of Pearl High School, where in 1997, Assistant Principal Joel Myrick retrieved a handgun from his own truck and confronted a gunman. (Some accounts forget to mention that Myrick was an Army reservist, and that he intervened as the 16-year-old assailant was leaving the school, following a shooting spree that left two people dead and three others injured.)

In fact you are less likely to be murdered on a school campus than in the general population. Beginning in 1990, the Clery Act required all colleges that participate in federal student aid programs to report crimes on and around their campuses. It’s illuminating data to swim through, and to compare to national totals. A database query of the CDC’s Fatal Injury Reports reflects 18,536 total homicides in Texas from 2001 to 2013. The Clery data indicates that only five of those were on or near college campuses. (There are currently about 1.5 million students enrolled in institutions of higher education in the state.) If campus carry will make Texas college campuses as safe as the rest of the state, they’ll be deadlier than they are now.

At one point, gun rights and gun control advocates saw eye-to-eye on guns in schools. In the immediate aftermath of the Columbine High School shooting of 1999, even the NRA believed in “absolutely gun-free, zero-tolerance, totally safe schools.” In the annual meeting that year, Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre said that even talking about guns in schools should be prohibited. “We believe America’s schools should be as safe as America’s airports. You can’t talk about, much less take, bombs and guns onto airplanes. Such behavior in our schools should be prosecuted just as certainly as such behavior in our airports is prosecuted.”

statements by departments, students and professional organizations

Department of Integrative Biology

November 3, 2015

The Department of Integrative Biology at The University of Texas at Austin opposes guns in classrooms, laboratories, and faculty offices. We believe that guns in educational and research spaces will impede learning, discovery, and intellectual freedom and thereby undermine the University’s mission to achieve excellence and advance society

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statements by departments, students and professional organizations

Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering

We the undersigned faculty members of the Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering believe that, except for those carried by law enforcement personnel, guns should not be allowed in any building at the University of Texas at Austin. The first canon of the code of ethics of the American Society of Civil Engineers begins “Engineers shall hold paramount the safety, health and welfare of the public.” We believe that allowing guns in our classrooms, laboratories, and offices would be inconsistent with this canon. Further, we believe that allowing guns in campus buildings is contrary to the directive of the Constitution of the State of Texas that we should become a “university of the first class,” because it will make the retention and recruitment of excellent faculty and students more difficult. Continue reading Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering →

statements by departments, students and professional organizations

The Board of the American Academy of Religion

The American Academy of Religion (AAR) is deeply concerned about the impact of Texas¹s new Campus Carry law as it relates to Texas universities.

The law, which was passed earlier this year, will take effect in 2016. It allows licensed handgun owners to bring concealed handguns into buildings, including classrooms, on Texas campuses. The law gives public universities some discretion to regulate campus carry but stipulates such regulations may not “generally prohibit” or “have the effect of generally prohibiting” those licensed from carrying concealed handguns.

The AAR believes that maintaining safe environments for free inquiry is vitally important to every classroom in higher education. As scholars of religion, we are especially sensitive to classroom security. The critical study of religion can be unsettling and uncomfortable: it often questions closely held beliefs and probes religious convictions.

The AAR believes that the Campus Carry law and similar laws in other states will compromise the safety of the spaces in which we teach, introduce new threats to college campuses, and result in harmful effects on students, professors, and the free expression of ideas. The AAR urges university leaders to consider classroom restrictions on campus carry to protect physical safety and safeguard academic freedom.

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statements by departments, students and professional organizations

School of Social Work Statement on Campus Carry

We, the undersigned faculty and staff of the UT Austin School of Social Work, strongly oppose guns on campus. Social work is a field committed to social justice and to the health and wellbeing
of individuals, families, and communities. We work tirelessly to prevent violence and trauma, and all forms of oppression. As social scientists, we base our recommendations and interventions on rigorous scientific evidence. Research evidence is conclusive that concealed weapons do not reduce crime or violence. In fact, access to firearms increases the risk of violence and tragedies. We believe that permitting concealed weapons on campus will only create fear, intimidation, panic and harm. And because violence and intimidation are tools of social control, we stand in solidarity with other groups on our campus who are impacted disproportionately by violence including communities of color, women, individuals living with
disabilities and members of the LGBTQIA community. Accordingly, we join with our esteemed colleagues in other disciplines on campus and with the scientific community at large in strongly opposing the presence of guns on the UT campus. Continue reading School of Social Work Statement on Campus Carry →