Longtime Dean Of UT Architecture School Quits Over 'Campus Carry'

AUSTIN, TX -- The longtime dean of the School of Architecture at the University of Texas at Austin is stepping down over the upcoming “campus carry” law that will allow people to carry their concealed guns into classrooms.

Frederick L. Steiner said he’s resigning as the school’s dean to take the same position at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design on July 1, a full month before “campus carry” takes effect.

He told the Texas Tribune he made the decision to leave because of that upcoming Texas law due to take effect Aug. 1.

Championed by the GOP majority in the Texas Legislature, “campus carry” was enacted as law along with a similar “open carry” law that allows people to walk in public with their holstered guns in plain view.

While the “open carry” provision took place Jan. 1, its companion “campus carry” allowing concealed guns on campus won’t take effect until Aug. 1.

Steiner’s departure manifests one of the fears UT President Gregory L. Fenves expressed last week when he implemented a set of policies related to guns at the UT campus ahead of the new law.

“I have significant concerns about how the law will affect our ability to recruit and retain faculty and students,” Fenves said Feb. 18 as he expressed his concerns about the new law. Unlike private universities that are able to opt out of implementing “campus carry,” state-sponsored schools like UT are forced to comply.

Steiner said he has turned down offers to join other universities in the past. But with the spectre of “campus carry” looming, he decided to accept the Penn job.

“I would have never applied for another job if not for campus carry,” he said in an interview with the Texas Tribune. “I felt that I was going to be responsible for managing a law I didn’t believe in.”

Looking forward to joining the Ivy League, he nonetheless reiterated he never would’ve considered taking the job had it not been for the upcoming law.

“Penn is a great institution and I am very happy to go to Penn, but I was approached ... and, if it wouldn’t have been for campus carry, I wouldn’t have considered it,” he said.

Steiner is not alone in opposing the new law. Scores of students and professors have signed petitions repudiating the idea of guns on campus.

And last month, noted physicist Steven Weinberg -- a Nobel Prize laureate -- publicly aired his opposition to campus carry as well.

“I will put it into my syllabus that the class is not open to students carrying guns,” he said during a recent meeting of UT’s Faculty Council covered by the Austin American-Statesman newspaper. “I may wind up in court; I’m willing to accept that responsibility.”