A much-watched test of how far colleges can go in arguing for academic freedom is unfolding at the University of Utah over an unlikely issue: whether the administration can ban guns from the campus.
Like most other colleges, the university has long banned students, professors, and staff members from possessing firearms on its campus. But the policy is at odds with a seven-year-old state law that allows those with permits to carry concealed weapons. The issue became a crisis early this year, when Utah’s attorney general, Mark L. Shurtleff, under pressure from the Legislature, issued a legal opinion that the university was violating the law.
The university then sued Mr. Shurtleff in federal court, arguing that U.S. Supreme Court decisions upholding academic freedom set a precedent for the banning of guns to maintain a safe learning environment. Even the presence of concealed weapons would have a “chilling effect” on the robust debate that campuses require, university officials argued.
Students, for example, might restrain their opinions during classroom discussions on controversial topics like abortion and affirmative action, out of fear that they would say something that would prompt a classmate to brandish a weapon.
“The essence of my position is that a college campus is unlike almost any other public area of our society,” says the university’s president, J. Bernard Machen. “It’s a place where people come together and actually engage in the free expression of ideas, and many times strong emotions are expressed.”
The university faces some long legal odds. Academic freedom is not enshrined in the Constitution, and federal courts are often reluctant to enter battles over state law. Moreover, most academic-freedom arguments accepted by courts are in realms in which colleges can claim some special expertise, such as faculty scholarship and college admissions. The debate over whether concealed weapons contribute to or deter crime has raged for decades, largely outside academe.
“I’ve never heard of someone trying to use an academic-freedom argument in that way,” says John R. Lott Jr., a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, in Washington, who has written a controversial book suggesting that liberal concealed-weapons laws actually reduce violent crimes. “It usually has to do with something more academic.”
University officials and their supporters acknowledge that the lawsuit stretches existing notions of academic freedom. “Is there a little breaking of ground here? I think so,” says Sheldon E. Steinbach, vice president and general counsel for the American Council on Education, which along with several other higher-education organizations filed a brief in support of the University of Utah.
Utah’s attorney general says the academic-freedom argument is a red herring. He believes the case boils down to a simple fact. The state’s concealed-weapons bill provides exemptions for mental institutions, courts, prisons, and airports, but not for universities. “The university is not above the law,” Mr. Shurtleff says.
Mr. Machen says the university filed the suit in federal district court in Salt Lake City because it raises broad questions that center on academic freedom and campus security. But Mr. Shurtleff believes the federal courts have no business meddling in Utah law, and he is seeking to have the case shifted to state court. A hearing on that request is scheduled for next month.
Dodging Bullets From Politicians
Support for the Second Amendment runs deep in Utah, and the 44,000-student campus in Salt Lake City has come under fire from politicians for its stand against guns. State Sen. Michael G. Waddoups, a Republican, introduced legislation in the spring that would have cut in half the salaries of state administrators who did not abide by the will of the Legislature. The “Burn Bernie bill,” nicknamed for Mr. Machen, passed the Senate but failed in the House of Representatives on a 38-to-35 vote.
Both the university’s Academic Senate and a committee of staff members overwhelmingly approved resolutions to support the weapons ban, but statistics regarding the opinions of students are less conclusive.
A telephone poll of 400 students, conducted early this year by an independent research firm, found that 84 percent of those surveyed objected to allowing students to bring firearms to the campus. However, only 49 percent said they thought the university should be exempt from the state law that allows residents with a permit to carry a concealed weapon.
Proponents of the concealed-weapons law point out that only responsible adults can obtain a permit. Those seeking a permit must be 21 years old, pass a gun-safety test, and have no criminal record or history of mental illness. Critics of the university’s stance also note that it has some of the state’s best students, who may be more likely than the rest of the population to use firearms responsibly.
“We now have a system where a 22-year-old who dropped out of school and is working at 7-Eleven can carry a gun for self-defense, and a medical student at the university who will be trusted with people’s lives every day can’t,” says Sarah Thompson, executive director of the Utah Gun Owners Alliance. “That makes no sense.”
The vast majority of college campuses have rules banning firearms, and many of the eight other public four-year institutions in Utah until recently had policies that were similar to those at the University of Utah. However, most Utah institutions rescinded their policies early this year after the Legislature, acting on the legal order handed down by the attorney general, banned restriction of concealed weapons on campuses.
The University of Utah received support for its position this summer when Brigham Young University’s president, Merrill J. Bateman, filed an affadivit that used many of the same arguments advanced by Mr. Machen in explaining why Brigham Young bans concealed weapons. (The state cannot take action against private colleges.) As the leading Mormon institution in a state in which Mormons make up majority of the population, Brigham Young and its top administrators wield considerable influence.
Utah State University bans concealed weapons only in its dormitories, a stance that does not violate state law. The longstanding policy permitting some concealed weapons may stem from the university’s location in Logan, a small town in which hunting is popular, according to its president, Kermit L. Hall, who has been at the helm for just 20 months. He says he will push for a campuswide ban if the University of Utah’s lawsuit succeeds.
“Academic freedom operates in several different directions,” says Mr. Hall, whose institution signed on to the legal brief filed by the American Council on Education and other higher-education organizations. “One critical element is the ability of an institution to create a learning environment that is as open and free of potential threats as possible. Even the threat of intimidation should not be part of what constitutes a university campus.”
Mr. Shurtleff, the attorney general, says the academic-freedom arguments fall flat because the University of Utah has provided no evidence of how campus debate would be affected. “You’d think they’d do some homework,” he says. “Show me where a concealed-weapons-permit holder has pulled out a gun and threatened somebody or ever chilled any debate. There’s no evidence whatsoever. It’s never happened.”
Guns and Grade Disputes
Defenders of the university’s policy say that lucky streak could end quickly, especially since numerous studies show that the mere presence of guns increases the odds of deadly violence. “You can repeat something over and over again, and it may not occur, but that doesn’t mean it won’t occur next,” says Darren Bush, a visiting associate professor of law at the University of Utah.
Next month, Mr. Bush is scheduled to face off in a debate against Mr. Lott, the think-tank scholar, who argues in More Guns, Less Crime (University of Chicago Press, 1998) that violent-crime rates drop in regions that use broad, objective criteria for issuing concealed-weapons permits. “The type of person who is willing to go through the permit process is not the kind of person you need to worry about,” Mr. Lott says.
For all the talk about how guns will hamper debate, the main concern among administrators and professors seems to be faculty and student disputes over grades. In January, a student who had been suspended from the Appalachian School of Law, in Virginia, used a handgun to kill a dean, a professor, and a student.
“You have very driven individuals trying to get A’s so that they can get the perfect job,” Mr. Bush says. “If they get something less than that, you can get very heated discussions, and you’re all alone. In those moments, you want to be thinking on the merits. You don’t want to be thinking, Gee, is this person packing heat?’”
Tefton Smith, a vice president of Gun Rights Advocates, a group of about 60 law students at Utah, sees the Appalachian tragedy differently: as a compelling reason for carrying a concealed weapon. “Campuses aren’t the safe haven that they once were,” he says.
Still, officials at the Appalachian School of Law don’t agree that the solution to gun violence involves more guns. A few months after the January murders, the law school reaffirmed its weapons policy, which prohibits students, professors, and staff members from bringing firearms to campus.
http://chronicle.com Section: Government & Politics Volume 49, Issue 4, Page A26
