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Abstract
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The issue of whether concealed handgun licensees ("CHLs") should be permitted to carry firearms inside higher education academic buildings (including classrooms) has been vociferously debated over the past decade. Yet, despite the numerous voices expressing fervent dissent to such a measure, some state legislatures have passed laws mandating the allowance of firearms in classrooms as a measure taken to prevent school shootings and other campus violence. These laws, hereinafter referred to as "compulsory campus carry laws," put public higher educational institutions in a conundrum--either: (1) follow a law that the overwhelming majority on campus disagree with; or (2) disobey the law by continuing to ban firearms and potentially risk a reduction in state funding or another financial penalty.
But campus carry laws implicate more than just Second Amendment rights. American colleges and universities, and the students and faculty that inhabit them, enjoy special protections designed to protect the ability to teach and learn freely.
Requiring the allowance of firearms in classrooms and academic buildings will have a chilling effect on academic speech in many different ways, including students' in-class expression, professor and student engagement, professor and professor interaction, and administrator and professor relations. Accordingly, campus carry laws may violate First Amendment protections of academic freedom.
For example, knowing that a student may be concealing a firearm could cause a professor to feel uncomfortable giving a student a failing grade because this could result in a violent confrontation, and even death. Indeed, it is not outside the realm of possibility for a student to shoot a professor over a grade. In 2002, a disgruntled Appalachian School of Law student who was academically dismissed shot and killed one of his law professors and the law school dean. A law permitting students with CHLs to carry firearms into classrooms increases the chances of this happening again on a college campus, especially at a law school, where nearly all of the students are 21 years of age or older and satisfy the CHL age requirement.
The presence of guns could also negatively affect interactions between professors as well as faculty governance. For instance, faculty members may be less likely to cast negative votes on important issues like tenure out of fear of being shot. Consider the case of the University of Alabama professor who found the denial of tenure so calamitous that she murdered some of her colleagues during a department meeting.
Legislation authorizing professors to carry concealed firearms arguably increases the likelihood of a retaliatory shooting for adverse employment actions, which has a chilling effect on speech.
Finally, students who feel uncomfortable in the presence of firearms may be afraid to freely engage in debates over controversial issues. This sort of self-censoring is antithetical to a university's educational mission...
Language: en |