It has become a truism that a great many college campus environments have become toxic to rights that were once celebrated and are specifically named in the Constitution…rights such as freedom of speech and the right to keep and bear arms. It used to be axiomatic that on a campus, people were able to argue about controversial ideas without being subjected to censorship. This was especially pushed hard by leftist groups in the 1960’s.
It was all a charade designed to gain power. Those efforts led to professors such as Karla Holloway, pictured above, who used her clout to convict the Duke LaCross players without a trial in 2006.
The Group of 88 was a term applied to 88 professors at Duke University who condemned the Duke’s lacrosse team for their alleged involvement in a rape that was later declared a hoax.
Karla F.C. Holloway, a professor of English and African-American Studies was the person who initially thought of placing the ad.[1]
Now that the “progressives” control college environments, many topics are taboo, and the ability to bear arms has been extinguished for decades.
In Texas, though, there’s a small ray of hope. The Texas legislature passed a statute that allows for a carefully vetted, small group of incredibly law-abiding students to carry arms on campus; but only if those arms are carefully hidden, so as not to offend the sensibilities of the local gun haters.
The policy, while considerably short of full recognition of the right to keep and bear arms, is having a small, positive, effect on the campus population. Some of the most vocal and least tolerant of the gun haters are choosing to stay away from the Austin campus. From mystatesman.com:
A University of Texas English professor says a law enabling Texans with state permits to carry concealed guns into classrooms has already caused prospective faculty, students and even speakers not to come to the Austin campus.
Lisa Moore said in an NPR interview aired Aug. 7, six days after the campus carry mandate took effect: “We already have concrete examples of faculty who have declined to apply for jobs here at the university or who, once offered jobs, have turned them down when they realized that this policy would go into effect, students changing their minds about coming to our graduate and undergraduate programs, and invited speakers declining to come when they realized that we couldn’t guarantee that they would give their talk in a gun-free space.”
The Austin campus has no shortage of gun haters. It suffers from an amazing surplus of those who are unwilling to allow people to exercise their Constitutional rights. Karla Holloway is the lecturer who refused to come to Austin because of the campus carry law. Austin is better off without her privileged, elitist voice, one that’s used to condemn the very society from which she’s so richly benefited.
In this case, the Texas campus carry law acts as a mild filter, adding an incentive for those with particular disdain for the Constitution to stay away. In the story cited, the fact checker was able to confirm only one speaker who wouldn’t come to Austin because of the new law, one prospective faculty member who decided to stay away, and one student who decided to cross Austin off his list of prospective schools.
It’s evidence, however anecdotal, that the law is having a positive effect.
Two faculty members had such high levels of gun hatred and disdain for the Constitution that they felt compelled to mention the new law affected their decision to leave Austin for employment elsewhere. Again, small, but positive numbers.
Austin is overflowing with boastful, intolerant “progressives” who actively dislike American culture and the American Constitution. The city and state would be far better off if these intolerant individuals stayed away.
I watched the takeover of public universities during the 1960’s, 70’s, and 80’s. It was done with with the intent of remaking America in the image that “progressives” desire, a centrally planned economy run by them, in which those who value the rule of law, freedom, and structures that limit government power, are voices to be silenced.
It was a mistake to allow our universities to be turned into indoctrination camps for intolerant liberal fascists. That a few have now been dissuaded from coming to the University of Texas at Austin is a positive side effect of starting to restore the Second Amendment in Texas.
©2016 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included.
Gun Watch
“…declining to come when they realized that we couldn’t guarantee that they would give their talk in a gun-free space.”
They always seem to forget to mention, that the same “problem” exists almost EVERYWHERE these people would chose to teach, attend, or speak. Short of jails/prisons and presidential speaking areas, everywhere else they might chose to go ALSO can’t guarantee gun-free spaces.
Nice write-up, Dean; thanks for posting it.
Guaranteeing a gun free space is a physical impossibility. If someone tries to walk in with a gun, what’s going to stop them, a strongly worded warning? No, you need an armed guard and then it’s not a ‘gun free zone’. You could have a pretend gun free zone, but then there’s no guarantee that reality won’t crash your party.
You think prisons are gun-free places?
We can’t keep out drugs and cell phones, why would guns be any different? My guess is there just isn’t enough need for them for it to be commonplace.
Prisons and presidential photo ops aren’t gun-free, either. It’s just that most of the guns in those places are in the hands of government employees.
I couldn’t agree more.
Colorado has had campus carry for years. No problems have occured. Other states have this too.
I carry to classes every day I attend them, again, no problems
Gun haters don’t care about the facts, or that their fears are unfounded and proved wrong in places they consider strongholds, they are mad that the pretend world they live in is being exposed and they are losing their control. …as per usual.
This problem should only exist everywhere in the country, Good bye and good riddance to the snobs.
Poor normal folks of Austin deserve a break from their and yes Ill say it.
Shitty influences. Ive seen the same things happen to Colorado a once nice place to live. I wouldnt want to be there now. Too many transplanted Kalifornians polluting the 2 states.
Dont let the door hit them in their collective asses on the way out of town.
The correct term is “Kalifornicators”.
Hint: It’s not solely Californians. And often, the ones fleeing California and bringing their blue state herpes with them are usually originally from the northeast or the midwestern blue enclaves like Chicago and Milwuakee, who fled there, bollixed a good thing up with their intransigence and are fleeing the sinking ship for Texas.
Outside of LA and the Bay Area, up through the mid to late 80’s, California wasn’t too terribly different, politically speaking, than Texas or Arizona. I was born and raised in San Diego county, and graduated HS in 88, and our NJROTC detachment had an air rifle marksmanship team, and those who could afford a car and license could come and go freely on campus at lunchtime.
Not like the virtual concentration camps some high schools are today. Hell, I carried a Swiss Army knife daily and my teachers and other staff knew it, since I loaned it to them occasionally to open letters or boxes.
Not saying that the state isn’t an unholy mess, as it quite obviously is. However, a *lot* of the saner natives like myself fought the good fight and lost, and decamped for freer America.
This is the most succinct description I’ve read of how those who once advocated for tolerance of expression of unfavorable positions have, now that they think about it, decided it wasn’t such a good idea after all.
Dean, excellent article.
This should be part of a mandated syllabus for all incoming freshmen.
Liberals and Conservatives both do the same thing…just with different pet issues. The real issue is that nobody wants to leave anybody else alone! We see someone speeding and think oh I hope they get busted…we see someone riding without a helmet and we say I hope they wreck and smash their head, serve ’em right. Drugs, guns, sexuality, it goes on and on and on…and our pet candidates make ever more “laws” forbidding the things we don’t like. We are a republic who wants, loves, needs and thrives on being an omnipotent moral busybody.
I’ll just drop off one of my favorite C.S. Lewis quotes right here:
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”
“We see someone speeding and think oh I hope they get busted”
I understand your overall message, but some drivers deserve to be pulled over because they’re actively endangering others. There’s a difference between speeding/passing slowpokes carefully and recklessly weaving in and out of lanes without using a directional, or in other words, showing off. We’ve all had our hectic moments with those douche canoes on the road.
Assuming that you are not spending your time attempting to locate evildoers, but just trying to get from point A to point B, chances are good that someone whose driving you actually notice as dangerous, is drunk as a skunk or on some serious drugs. I rarely find someone on the highway who is driving faster than I am, but my radio is off, I don’t talk on the phone, my vision is 20-20 and my car is in perfect condition and built to drive the Autobahns at 140. Anyone wishing me ill is just as described above, wishing to protect me from myself.
See, I’m A-OK with people driving faster than me, so long as they’re capable of doing so safely and without impinging on my ability to drive safely at a slower rate than they want to. Same with motorcyclists who eschew leather, CE armor, gloves and helmets. Just don’t come and stick me (and everyone else) with the bill when they’re in a PVS state for the next 3 decades after they crash and half their brains were hosed off the blacktop and they didn’t carry vehicle or medical insurance.
Same with sex/marriage. As long as both are of age of consent and it’s mutually consensual, let them boink whoever they want. As far as marriage is concerned, no legal document issued by any government body, federal, state, county or city, should have the words “marriage” on it. Everyone gets a cert of civil union that covers inheritance, joint/separate taxes, power of attorney and so on, and nowhere in that document does the word “marriage” appear. Marriage is an institution of the church, so let the hypothetical homosexual couple find one of the MANY churches that would be thrilled to perform the ceremony for them, and the hetero couples can do likewise.
What we really need is one new law, this law will require that effective immediately upon it’s being signed into law, before any new law is passed, 4 other laws must be repealed. Be a good way to clean out the cruft from the 1800s that’s still floating around.
I’m in!
If it saves us from just one liberal, it’s worth it.
Sometimes it seems like you can’t take yes for an answer
The strongly infringed right you are still bemoaning is what, inability to open carry a long gun into class?
How would a person hold it in a classroom ? Could you lay it down next to you and hope nobody trips on it? Lean it against the desk and hope you don’t muzzle someone or let it fall over?
Simple, the desks should have little notches cut into them so you can secure the barrel of your rifle against anything but a hard collision.
Ask a dumbshit trolly question, get a dumbshit trolly answer.
The strongly infringed right would include open carry on campus. No, not to carry a long gun over your shoulder, and probably not even to carry a sidearm openly.
Open carry would protect those who choose to carry concealed, but whose self defense sidearm happens to be exposed briefly, from having a SWAT team swarm iver them as they take a midterm exam.
More importantly, though, the apsect of this right being strongly infringed is not being allowed to keep one’s self defense sidearm in your dorm room. That policy endangers dorm residents, but also the community as a whole, since that sidearm is apt to be kept I attended in an easily accessed personal vehicle.
Moreover, the right is infringed for mandating expensive licensing, training and background checks as a precondition for exercising this right. What other constitutionally enumerated right comes with such restrictions?
To top it off, this right is infringed for denying law abiding adults under 21 from exercising their right. Think about it: college students must be at least 21 to exercise this right. Yet, their 18, 19, and 20 year old friends from high school who went into the military may carry full auto weapons all across Iraq. And…..according to failed Democrat presidential candidate and failed Secretary of State John Kerry, THOSE are the people who were too stupid to get into college, so they got “stuck” in the military.
Hmmm…..allegedly stupid army grunts get full auto to kill people who never attacked us, but our best and brightest 18-20 year olds may not even carry a self defense sidearm while walking back to the dorm from the library after a late night of studying. Do you still not see the strong infringement?
Several upstanding gentlemen I worked with on a scout reservation reminisced to me once about how back in the good old days they would regularly take their rifles and shotguns to school with them on their bikes. They’d just leave them all up at the front of the room by the teacher’s desk and take them with them at the end of the day. This was in New Jersey back in the early 60s. My how times have changed.
In Oklahoma in the mid-’60s, the rural boys left rifles in their trucks’ rear window gun-racks in the HS parking lot . . . unlocked. A different time, a different place, a different country.
Here’s one of those “old fart” memories for ya! My first car was a ’62 Chevy. That year, many years before, and several years after, Chevys had ignition switches which allowed you to turn the switch to the “unlocked” position, where nothing was turned on, then remove the key and deposit it in your house so you could find it if you ever needed it, then drive the car until the wheels fell off without ever seeing the key again. And MANY people did exactly that. Doors were never locked, ignition was never locked, it was a different world.
As a kid in elementary school and this was on Long Island. Id bring my single shot 22 to school leave it in the principal’s office during the day and squirrel hunt on my walk home.
Wasnt any big deal for 1965 NY.
I would go so far to say that the bigots this article describes are cowards. Too afraid to go anywhere that they cannot dictate the rules. Instead of staying, after the law is upheld, to voice their opposition (as is their right) they turn tail and run; just can’t stand to voice an opinion if they know there is no suit to back it up. These are the same type of people who claim they will move to Canada if Trump is elected president. People like this aren’t worthy of the name American- Americans do not try to suppress other American’s Constitutional rights, Americans do not abandon their country and its principles (regardless of who the president is) and Americans welcome civic discourse.
Cleaning out the pool of muddy water one drop of clean water at a time.
“….when they realized that we couldn’t guarantee that they would give their talk in a gun-free space.”
And how, exactly, were you able to give that “guarantee” before?
If there is a UT sociology major looking for a suitable thesis topic, “An armed society is a polite society,” comes to mind.
Thank you for submitting a paper I do not even need to read, I was busy today and it was helpful. Your grade is “F”, and your next 3 papers will also be “F”, you may wish to drop my class and withdraw from the University.
Well, yes, there might be a problem finding a sufficient number of faculty members willing to sit on one’s committee.
I see why UT is known for its dildos. They make speeches and everything.
Meanwhile, it apparently has gone unnoticed, or at least unmentioned, that Liberty University starting this year allows students to keep firearms in their dorm rooms.
If campus carry truly kept Karla Holloway off the UT campus, then that’s not a bug, it’s a feature!
Sooo… let me get this straight, anti’s are threatening to not come to Texas as though it’s actually a threat?
Oh, I get it, this is like Whoopi saying she’ll leave the country if Trump is elected, right…
Y’all “intellectuals” really need to crack open a behavior science book and learn how punishment and aversives works.
Yup, nothing to do with fear; these profs merely want an environment entirely cowed to their beliefs to operate from. When you think of it this way, as a carefully constructed hermetic chamber in which to dictate their beliefs unchallenged, you can see how truly weak their argument must be.
Maybe there’s a simple solution for all the disaffected UT faculty & students gripped in fear by the campus carry law; I hear the University of Missouri has quite a few vacancies, especially for students.
“…when they realized that we couldn’t guarantee that they would give their talk in a gun-free space.”
Never has a college been able to “guarantee” a gun-free space. How hard is it to understand that criminals do NOT observe “gun-free zones?”
“That a few have now been dissuaded from coming to the University of Texas at Austin is a positive side effect of starting to restore the Second Amendment in Texas.”
Yes but those ‘skeeters’ gotta land somewhere, and I don’t see them defecting to Canada…
Despite living and working in the Austin Area, my child goes to Texas A&M. They don’t have any gun drama there. No professors wanting to leave and students didn’t run away because of the lack of “safe spaces”.
The school really does seem to have a higher moral fiber that I would like to see continually instilled in my child. It is one of the many reasons my child and money attend this fine University.
My daughter is an aggie (aggies are students who went to Texas A&M). She got an excellent education, and she was on their pistol team for a year or two. It was one of the very few colleges in the country that still *had* a pistol team. Even so, the college rule book forbade students from possessing *knives*, even in their dorm room.
We have made a little progress since then.
My son goes there and to my dismay there are lefties in the teaching ranks according to him. You can only imagine what it’s like at the University of Texas.
Leftists are the same all over the world.
Democracy counts only as long as they are a minority, once they take control, Democracy is what they think and mean. All the rest is fascism and has no right to be discussed or applied.
If you don’t agree with them, they sooner or later always come to they point where they would rather kill you for not wanting what’s good for you, rather than to let you choose freely (and democratically).
Obviously, what’s good for you is theirs to decide. Your opinion is not necessary, nor wanted.
That’s the way, everywhere they have made an appearance on this unfortunate planet, they have started killing free people.
The other curious thing is that leftists hate the “capital”, but they eventually all get rich spitting on it.
In Italy we make fun of them with a joke that goes: I’m not a communist because I can’t afford to be one.
Most people instantly understand it.
Wonder why?
I am sure that those who find the University’s position distasteful can apply to Mizzou where their values will be appreciated. I hear there are lots of openings this year…
Duke University and Duke Hospitals are internationally known and highly regarded institutions that unfortunately happen to be in a city that is a shit hole. I will drive 30 minutes out of my way to avoid that city and county all together. If forced to go to Durham, I take 2 guns minimum. The town has some great concert venues and they draw great talent but I won’t go because the place just makes my skin crawl.
Glad the professors in the article declined to come. Now if UT could get rid of the rest of their professors we’d be in business.
Professors don’t like campus carry? Well, stick it up your ass.
So then, campus carry makes great progressive repellent.
I love it when the home team wins one.
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