Judge Tosses Out UT-Austin Lawsuit Decrying 'Campus Carry' Law

AUSTIN, TX — A federal court on Friday tossed out a lawsuit from the University of Texas professors opposed to the "campus carry" law allowing licensed gun owners to openly carry their weapons on university grounds.

Judge Lee Yaekel of the U.S. Western District dismissed the lawsuit, drawing praise from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton who is a notably proponent of the law passed last January.

“The court’s ruling today is the correct outcome,” Paxton said in a prepared statement. “The fact that a small group of professors dislike a law and speculate about a ‘chilling effect’ is hardly a valid basis to set the law aside.”

In his seven-page ruling, Yeakel dismissed professors’ worries as unfounded, rejecting the idea that the threat of physical harm is heightened given a student's ready access to a firearm, as the Austin American-Stateman reported. Moreover, it's teachers who would be to blame if fear for their safety muted classroom atmosphere, the judge added.

“The chilling effect appears to arise from plaintiff’s subjective belief that a person may be more likely to cause harm to a professor or student as a result of the law and policy,” Yeakel wrote. The judge determined that the suing professors “...present no concrete evidence to substantiate their fears, but instead rest on mere conjecture about possible … actions.”

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The "campus carry" law allows students with concealed handgun licenses (CHLs) to carry them onto campus and even into classrooms and other campus buildings. The law is an extension of sorts for gun-carrying privileges, something of an offshoot of a law in the books since 1995 allowing CHL holders to carry guns onto campus grounds at state-funded universities.

Virtually every private university in Texas has opted out of the law, adhering to their gun bans. But public universities are compelled to comply given their public status. Students and professors at UT-Austin have decried the law in citing potential violence. Some of the dissenting professors have suggested the heightened tensions that sometimes occur in the classroom—especially in classes touching on polarizing topics—could lead to violence that could be exacerbated given ready access to guns.

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