Stifling Academic Freedom, the NRA Way
March 1, 2016
Stifling Academic Freedom, the NRA Way
by Laura Finley
That conservative forces have long sought to squash dissent and curtail rigorous academic debate on campuses is far from a secret. From the militarization of many campuses, academic repression of faculty, excessive and difficult-to-navigate bureaucracies, limitations on free speech and more, college students, staff and faculty members today face many challenges as they seek to explore, debate, and take action on critical and difficult issues. The gun lobby has seized on this environment of academic stifling, promoting firearms as the answer to an array of problems on campuses and beyond. Dont want to get raped? Carry a gun, or its your own fault. The best way to prevent an active shooter situation? Everyone pack heat. The chilling effect of the campus carry laws that have been enacted has been immediately visible.
The state of Texas passed a campus carry law that is set to take effect on August 1, 2016. Already, professors at the University of Houston were told that once the new law is effective, they might want to be careful discussing sensitive topics, drop certain topics from your curriculum, Not go there if you sense anger, limit students access off hours, go to appointment-only office hours, and only meet that student in controlled circumstances. Evidently, if I taught at that university my sociology classes could no longer cover well
anything. The NRA supports campus carry bills being considered in Florida, and in a memo to NRA members and friends dated November 2, 2015, NRA Past President Marion Hammer denounced educators who oppose the bill, amping up the rhetoric about how gun-free campuses are unsafe, there murderers, rapists, terrorists, and robbers may commit crimes without fear of being harmed by their victims. Hammers memo even uses quotations around the words educators, clearly implying that the many college administrators, professors and faculty members who do not support campus carry laws have dubious credentials.
The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) has noted that case law is clear: faculty have primary responsibility for determining curriculum, and academic freedom is critical for teaching their courses such that they include the most essential and evolving topics in their fields. The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) has issued similar calls to vigorously resist efforts to undermine academic freedom by people with ideological or commercial agendas. It is hard to see the NRA and its cronies as anything but having both an ideological and commercial agenda.
The courts have long noted that the primary purpose of higher education is to afford a marketplace for the full exchange of ideas. It is through this exchange that students come to see the very real problems in the world and how they might be part of the solution. That is next to impossible when faculty are told to abort discussion of anything that might stimulate or even upset a student, who then might start firing indiscriminately.
More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/03/01/stifling-academic-freedom-the-nra-way/
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)TeddyR
(2,493 posts)Since those attending are seeking to be educated. I frankly find this hysteria over campus carry to be much ado about nothing. I'm not aware of concealed carry students randomly shooting professors in Oregon or Colorado, both of which permit concealed carry on campus. Did I miss those stories?
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)GGJohn
(9,951 posts)GGJohn
(9,951 posts)GGJohn
(9,951 posts)MAYBE you can answer it,
If this were in any way true, then why hasn't it been a problem with the colleges that have allowed for CC for many, many years?
Why would TX colleges be any different?
friendly_iconoclast
(15,333 posts)Skittles
(153,113 posts)fucking cowards
friendly_iconoclast
(15,333 posts)The irony is rich...
Paladin
(28,243 posts)That is the 50th anniversary of Charles Whitman's mass slaughter from the University of Texas tower. It takes a special sort of arrogance and cold-hearted calculation to put such timing in place. But it's just the sort of thing that pro-gun militants and their Republican enablers enjoy doing.