Dive Brief
- Three professors who sued the Texas attorney general and the University of Texas at Austin over a state law that allowed guns on the institution’s campus have lost their case, according to the Dallas News.
- A federal court of appeals has ruled that the professors did not have standing to block the law, which allows concealed guns to be carried by people with permits on public college campuses.
- The three professors filed their suit in 2016. Their attorney said while she doubted they would take their case to a broader appeals court, they had not decided whether they would attempt to bring it to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Dive Insight
In response to the 2016 law that allowed guns on campus in Texas, the professors announced that they would ban guns in their classrooms — but they were threatened with disciplinary action. They then filed the lawsuit claiming that the law infringed upon various constitutional rights, including their free speech rights because the threat of a student having a gun would stifle discussion and opinions in their classrooms.
Some argue the Texas law will prevent violence. For instance, the police on the campus at Texas Tech University said that the law makes their campus safer and might deter someone considering a violent act.
In Georgia, there has been confusion over a campus carry law. Among the 22 technical colleges in the state there have been eight incidents where someone carried a firearm into an unauthorized location, and the university system recorded 15 violations since the law went into affect in July 2017.
Last July, the new Georgia law allowed individuals with state licensed permits to carry firearms on parts of public college campuses.