Projection
Warnings to the faculty of the University of Houston to alter their behavior lest they upset someone with a carry permit.
Remember, I do this to entertain me, not you.
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February 24th, 2016 at 6:10 pm
To be clear, they’ve ALWAYS been “careful discussing sensitive topics” when it was sensitive to liberals and would “drop certain topics” when liberal didn’t like the topic. Now they have to sensitive to EVERYBODY, and they are endlessly butthurt about it.
February 24th, 2016 at 7:22 pm
Looks like a lot of the private universities have opted out of campus carry. Some pretty interesting verbal tap-dancing there>
“There is no evidence that allowing the carrying of guns on our campus will make the campus safer.” –David Leebron, president, Rice University, Rice University, Houston
There is no evidence that it makes the campus more dangerous either.
February 24th, 2016 at 7:23 pm
After some period of time with no gun incidents, will the professor stop wearing diapers because he no longer wets his pants when he thinks of a gun? Just asking.
February 24th, 2016 at 9:17 pm
Rick – soooooo they need pre absence of crime evidence that there will be a larger absence of crime? Huh? That’s some mental jujitsu right there.
February 24th, 2016 at 11:06 pm
I read all the comments to that article, and the vast majority of them complained about how this “limits free speech” because the professors have to worry about “offending” someone.
One comment there, which received hardly any attention, mentioned how liberals have done far more damage in limiting free speech than this could ever do. There is no college campus in the US today where a professor could inquire as to whether “affirmative action” ought to be defined as “preferential treatment for women and minorities”. A professor tried that a few years ago and nearly lost his job.
Professors, you need to fear the liberals with their lawyers, not the conservatives with their (legal) firearms.
February 25th, 2016 at 4:52 am
Yes Fred, a Jesuit would probably break his teeth on an argument like that.
Me? I’d go armed and if confronted, explain that I identify as “unarmed.”
February 25th, 2016 at 7:10 am
From the first semesters at Bologna and Sorbonne, students were armed, or at least likely to be. The disarmed portion of collegiate history is a smidgen, a footnote, a poor player that runs onto the stage at five minutes to midnight. How (the hell) ever did Ye Professoriate get by for that first thousand years? *First one to mention Abelard gets the bonus point because I think “there’s a lot of that going around…”
February 25th, 2016 at 11:05 am
The thing that strikes me about the breathless objections from professors is how much they are flattering themselves. Listen you crybabies, no one in your classes cares enough about your opinion or what you are teaching to shoot up the place. Even if they did, they are probably not the type of people that were going to be stopped by a “no guns allowed” sign.
February 25th, 2016 at 1:05 pm
I’ve had a student threaten me physically in class (at UT) because I teach the geography of genetic diffusion and its evolutionary consequences (things like skin color, Tay-Sachs, etc). His objection was that evolution was satanic and that I was an atheist for teaching it. When he voiced his initial objection, I explained that my course was a science course and that we were covering this sort of material, but that if he wanted to discuss the issue with me outside of class he could as I had to cover the material for examination purposes. Mind you, this was a 250 person course. He called me a “coward” and that I was afraid of him and then charged to the front of the classroom at which point, I ended class and I spent my precious time explaining to him that he was fantastically out of line and would be in front of the Dean forthwith.
I threw him out of class and banned him from the class, as is my prerogative. He then threatened me further because the ban was after the withdraw with no grade period so he received an “F.” He told another student that I should be “eliminated” because I was “indoctrinating” students with communism. How this person managed to get accepted to UT is beyond me (but then I remember that, well, it’s not a very selective school). The problem was addressed by the Dean and I heard no more about it as he never returned to class.
I am not going to get into “what if he had a gun” bullshit. Nor am I going to get into fantasizing that students were armed at ancient universities and that fact is remotely relevant to the matter at hand. At that moment, in my class, I was being shown disrepect for my authority because that student was out of line and, frankly, out of control personally. Going well back into the beginnings of the university as an institution, from the first courses taught at Christ Church, Oxford to Bologna and so forth — (BTW, the Sorbonne is a building, not a university. The University of Paris, which dates from 1200 or so, is what you are talking about. I gave a lecture there last year. Neat place.) — the lecturer is the AUTHORITY in the classroom. I have a doctorate. That’s not just something you hang around long enough and they give you one. Less that 3% of all students achieve a terminal academic degree. I am an AUTHORITY in my profession. Therefore, the word “professor.” Personally, I hold the title of Senior Lecturer at my university (as of yesterday) because there’s a small difference between how we advance versus people with the title of “professor.” Basically, it means my “tenure,” called “life appointment,” hinges on peer review of teaching and student evaluation. Anyhow, I am the boss of my class. Students are not in any way shape or form in control. At all. It’s not a democracy. They don’t get to make any rules. None. Why? Because the inmates don’t run the prison. The best rated professors, of which I am one, are dictatorial, curmudgeonly, mean-as-hell tyrants who love their students and want to fill their brains with knowledge.
None of that knowledge, which can go against some people’s belief systems, is “made up bullshit” When I tell students that the European migrant crisis is not “a bunch of young men running away from military service or sneaking in to blow up German trains” it is not because I am telling them “propaganda.” It is because I’ve spent time on the Slovenian/Croatian border interviewing frightened refugees, collecting other data, and am a member of an international research consortium trying to figure out how to keep Europe, known for killing millions of people, from shitting the bed again. (NB. The average Syrian refugee is a high-school or better educated man traveling with family members who fled a middle-class life in Syria because he was either “the wrong kind of Muslim,” a Christian, or secular.)
That all said, in the end, even at a public university, and even if the law of the State says that a student can carry in the class room, I would add a codicil to the syllabus banning it. See you in court. I can guarantee that I would win that case every time. If I can ban free speech, which I can, I can ban guns. OK. How can I ban free speech in a classroom? I can tell you to shut the fuck up. Yup. If you are talking in class, I can shut you up and if you don’t like it. Tough shit. Leave.
Now, if you are making a statement to the class, germane to the course material, such as, “But I read in the WSJ that there are many of the migrants who are actually from Sub-Saharan Africa. How do you explain that?” Hot damn. That’s great. But say “You are lying and just trying to convince us that US foreign policy is to blame for the crisis” (it’s not even close the the main reason for the crisis, but a bit of the reason), I am going to grind you into dust in front of the class with facts and better logic. If you denounce me like a Maoist cadre (see my “satanic” student above) I am kicking your ass out free speech or not. See you in court.’
Same goes with guns. You take the class. You agree to the syllabus. If you agree to the syllabus, you’ve admitted that it’s not your space. It’s mine. Bring a gun to class. You’ve violated the syllabus. Violate the syllabus and you are gone. Guess what? That goes back to ancient universities. My favorite syllabus codicil is from Blackfriars, Oxford circa 1300AD: “No don shall introduce an ape to the College or the College’s grounds for sake of merriment or sport.”
February 25th, 2016 at 1:19 pm
Metulj, thank you for your interesting comment. I offer the following questions in a serious hope for dialogue.
Beyond your syllabus statement, how are you going to enforce your ban on concealed firearms in your class? Will there be metal detectors and X-ray scanners?
Will you ban anyone who has a concealed handgun license from your courses, without determining if they are carrying a firearm or not? How will you obtain that information about your students?
How have you determined for the entirety of your professional career that nobody was carrying a concealed firearm in your class, up to this point?
February 25th, 2016 at 1:31 pm
That all said, in the end, even at a public university, and even if the law of the State says that a student can carry in the class room, I would add a codicil to the syllabus banning it. See you in court. I can guarantee that I would win that case every time.
You’re obviously not in UT Law.
This is the problem with academics. They think that because they are experts in one narrow field that they are informed in a wide range of fields.
You are not.
I am in the field of law, and I am telling you this — you will lose. You may think highly of yourself, but you are not higher than the legislature that employs you.
February 25th, 2016 at 5:16 pm
My alma matter doesn’t allow guns, however it is not illegal to carry, openly or concealed, on campus. Were I to decide to enroll in a class at the school now, I could, if I so chose, simply carry concealed. The professor could rail against guns, he could write “NO GUNS ALLOWED” in big letters, and he could be ignored.
Someone with malicious intent could ignore a professors “no guns” proclamation just as easily as a law-abiding student with a CCW.
February 25th, 2016 at 8:06 pm
Wow mikee, Phelps, and mike w., all of you answered Metulj’s incredibly arrogant post a whole lot better than I could have. Seriously, I can’t remember the last time I read anything like what he wrote. My jaw dropped more and more as I read it. Good job guys.