The president of St. Thomas University gave its chief financial officer an ultimatum on Tuesday: Cut ties with a gun manufacturer or resign.
The CFO, Anita Britt, chose to keep her board position at American Outdoor Brands, a company that owns manufacturers of guns like the AR-15, which was used in a mass shooting last month that killed 17 people at a Florida high school. She retained her seat on the board, where she is likely to earn more than $100,000 a year, instead of her post at the Roman Catholic institution in Miami Gardens, Fla.
At first Msgr. Franklyn M. Casale, president of St. Thomas, stood by Britt, the Miami Herald reports. He said her affiliation with the gun manufacturer did not conflict with her responsibilities at St. Thomas. But public opinion was so strongly against having Britt work for both St. Thomas and the gun manufacturer that he had a change of heart.
“After my statement of this past Friday, it has become clear that many of the sensible and reasonable solutions to this gun epidemic, which have been discussed previously, were becoming less and less clear,” Casale said in a statement. “Accordingly, yesterday I advised Ms. Britt that she needed to make a choice of either resigning her role on American Outdoor Brands or her role as CFO at St. Thomas University, but that she could not continue on both. Ms. Britt informed me this afternoon that she has decided to resign her position at St. Thomas University.”
Britt did not immediately respond to The Chronicle’s attempts to reach her by phone or email.
Public opinion has largely held steady on gun control in recent years: A majority of Americans favor what’s often called common-sense gun legislation, including background checks and limits on certain kinds of automatic or semiautomatic weaponry. What’s changed now, however, is citizens’ zeal for more-restrictive gun-control laws, said Dannagal G. Young, an associate professor of communication at the University of Delaware.
“Traditionally, the majority of the population supports gun legislation, but when you ask them the most important issue facing the country, they’re not going to say guns,” Young said. “What is happening, all of the sudden, is the gun issue is not leaving the press. Now it seems, if there is passion on the side of the debate that wants to regulate guns, then there is a little bit more liberty to engage in those kinds of regulatory processes or have a campaign urging someone to divest themselves. Now we have a passionate majority.”
As young people have staged protests and school walkouts, and have played a major role in the gun-control debate since the high-school shootings in Parkland, Fla., a college administrator may be further encouraged to take a stand on gun control because of the college’s student population, Young said.
It is very clear that the backdrop has changed, especially when you are dealing with universities where the population is young people, who have found their voices on these issues.
“It is very clear that the backdrop has changed, especially when you are dealing with universities where the population is young people, who have found their voices on these issues,” she said. “I don’t think there is an explicit attempt to make people in higher ed change their policies on gun control. It’s really just a change in the climate. It can be very subtle and indirect, but very palpable.”
Whether a college leader is merely responding to a sudden surge in public opinion or is beginning a trend of divestment in gun-connected companies and individuals, Krista Jenkins, a professor of political science at Fairleigh Dickinson University, said only time would tell.
“It certainly feels that something is changing, but it’s a little bit early,” said Jenkins, who also direct a public-polling survey called PublicMind. “It’s not uncommon to see short-term fluctuations. The question is whether it’s a sustained change. People would feel more comfortable doing this in this climate than they would have three months ago, and people in positions of authority who may have thought about doing this but didn’t think the climate would tolerate that kind of ultimatum might feel more comfortable now.”