'Campus Carry' Law Controversy Heating Up, With UT Austin Emerging As Ground Zero Of Debate

AUSTIN, TX -- It's been less than a week since the state's controversial "campus carry" law went into effect, and already its enactment has triggered a heated battle. Emerging as ground zero of that battle pitting conservative lawmakers who championed the laws passage and its detractors is the University of Texas at Austin.

The day after the Aug. 1 implementation of "campus carry," which allows licensed gun owners to take their concealed guns on campus as an expression of their 2nd Amendment rights, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton made his mandate to force compliance plain: He exercised legal maneuverings to block dissenting professors from banning guns in their classrooms.

On Tuesday, Paxton filed a brief with the U.S. District Court that opposes a request by three UT Austin professors for a temporary injunction to block the new "campus carry" law. The law allowing guns on campus has sent chills across the campus, where staff and students -- including UT President Gregory L. Fenves -- have expressed their opposition to the law.

Unlike private universities that are able to opt out of complying, public universities partially subsisting on state funding are forced to comply. Fenves recently -- albeit reluctantly -- issued protocols on how to comply with the new law.

Three professors vehemently opposed to the law -- sociology professor Jennifer Lynn Glass; English professor Lisa Moore; and associate English professor Mia Carter -- asked U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel to give them the option of declaring their classrooms to be gun-free zones, as the Austin American-Statesman reported and other media outlets reported.

The three professors argue that the specter of "campus carry" would at the very least stifle discussion among students as it relates to unfettered discussion of controversial issues such as homosexuality or abortion.

They expounded on their claims on Thursday at Judge Yeakel's courtroom.

Ahead of the court date, Paxton was dismissive of the professors' concerns while he sought to block their efforts to ban guns in their classrooms.

“It is a frivolous lawsuit and I’m confident it will be dismissed because the Legislature passed a constitutionally sound law,” Paxton said in a prepared statement. “There is no legal justification to deny licensed, law-abiding citizens on campus the same measure of personal protection they are entitled to elsewhere in Texas.”

Paxton was joined by Gov. Greg Abbott and other GOP lawmakers in aggressively pushing for "campus carry." They also succeeded in passing a companion dubbed "open carry" that allows people to walk around with their holstered guns in plain view.

The "open carry" law also has proved controversial. An untold number of businesses -- most notably the HEB grocery store chain -- availed themselves of a clause that allows them to opt out of the law, effectively banning customers from entering their establishments while toting their guns.

And in Dallas, the mayor and other officials blamed the "open carry" that was enacted Jan. 1 with adding chaos to the scene of a peaceful protest that was interrupted by gunfire from an assailant targeting police officers. In the end, five policemen were killed. Some officials said the presence of weapon-toting people in the crowd exercising their newly found "open carry" rights added confusion as police frantically sought to identify the gunman.

Late Thursday, the judge overseeing the case brought by the three professors refused to rule until both sides could come to an agreement over the specifics of the new law's implementation.

The federal judge expressed frustration both sides couldn't agree on rules and policies related to the carrying of concealed handguns on campus, the Austin American-Statesman reported.

“We’ve now spent an hour, and I don’t know what we’re talking about,” the Statesman quoted Yeakel as saying. “I’m not going to make a decision” if there’s disagreement on what the policies outline, the newspapers quoted him saying.

Yeakel gave the professors' lawyers and university officials until 5 p.m. next Wednesday to file papers fully explaining the policies, along with outlined punishments professors might face for violating them, the Statesman reported.

It's been less than one week since "campus carry" was officially implemented, and already the battle lines are drawn. One thing is certain: It's going to be a long, dragged-out fight between gun advocates and those calling for limits to such 2nd Amendment expression.

And that fight is just getting started.

To see Paxton's full Response to Application for Preliminary Injunction, click here.