University of Texas professors are revolting. In response to the passage of campus carry legislation SB 11 prohibiting state-funded institutions of higher learning from banning legal concealed carry as of August 16, 2016, UT teaching staff are adding their names to a Google document entitled 160+ UT PROFESSORS REFUSE GUNS IN THEIR CLASSROOMS. Refuse how, you ask? Now there’s a question. One which UT history prof and co-creator of the doc Dr. Joan Neuberger doesn’t answer. To be fair . . .
the student journos at dailytexansonline.com didn’t ask Dr. Neuberger if she and/or her anti-gun colleagues had any plans for civil disobedience in the face of Americans’ lawfully exercising their civil rights. But the paper kinda sorta addressed the “what next?” issue with a UT PR lecturer (of all things).
Public relations lecturer Dave Junker said he found the list through Facebook and added his name to publicly state his opposition to campus carry. He said he hopes the law is repealed, or at least, that guns will not be allowed in classrooms, or that faculty get to determine policies in their own classrooms.
“It’s hard to imagine what I will do if a student walks into my class with a concealed weapon,” Junker said in an email. “Maybe I wouldn’t be able to tell. Maybe that is the worst part: never knowing if a student has a gun but having to assume that someone does.”
I wonder if the lecturers at Virginia Tech would wish they’d adopted the wary mindset Junker fears.
Just in case you find a list of 160+ professors opposing Americans’ natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms depressing, dailytexanonline.com writer Selah Maya Zighelboim ends her report with a heartening comment from a clued-in, albeit anti-gun student.
Biology junior Kiran Pilla, who opposes campus carry, said she does not believe the list will influence how the University implements campus carry.
“Petitions raise awareness, but I don’t think they generally impact legislation,” Pilla said. “Public opinion does not make laws. It’s not a direct democracy.”
Make no mistake: Governor Abbot would fire any UT professor who violated a student’s right to keep and bear arms. The idea that UT professors would risk their tenure to do so is laughable. But not impossible. Watch this space.