At the University of Texas at Austin, a Nobel Prize laureate wants to ban guns from class, regardless of whether it would violate state law.
Physicist Steven Weinberg announced that he’s willing to face a lawsuit over his ban, proclaiming that the presence of guns in his classroom is a threat to “constitutionally protected free speech and academic freedom,” according to The Texas Tribune.
The strategy could come to a head, and soon. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton previously declared, in a non-binding analysis, that the campus-carry law prohibits a public college from banning handguns in dormitories and campus buildings. It’s possible that one professor might be able to have a ban upheld, but if the effect would “generally prohibit” campus carry, it would violate Texas law, according to Paxton.
“We should allow the courts to decide the decision. And I am not so sure that they wouldn’t decide it in a way that we would find agreeable,” Weinberg said at a faculty council meeting on Monday.
Gun Free UT, a group opposed to campus carry, has argued that the new law threatens the safety of all on the UT-Austin campus, as well as freedom of speech and open academic discourse.
Steven Goode, a law professor at UT-Austin and the chairman of the campus carry task force, was skeptical that Weinberg’s argument could stand in court.
“I think it is an extraordinarily weak argument,” he told the Tribune.
Weinberg has mentioned that he’s embarrassed by the attention he has received on the issue. If the state doesn’t allow him to prohibit guns in his classroom, he has said he would consider retirement.
