Professors sue University of Texas and state attorney over campus carry laws

Tom Dart in Houston
Thursday 7 July 2016 21.54 BST

Three professors are suing the Texas attorney general and University of Texas officials in a bid to block part of a new campus carry law that will force them to allow concealed handguns in classrooms.

The trio of liberal arts professors at the university’s Austin campus warn that the forthcoming rule could pose a grave danger to academic freedom. ..

The state’s Republican governor, Greg Abbott, signed the bill into law in June last year. It goes into effect on 1 August, a notorious date in America’s long history of mass shootings.

“In a cruel irony, the Texas legislature has mandated that 50 years to the day after one of the worst gun-related massacres ever on a college campus – when Charles Whitman gunned down 43 people on or about the campus of the University of Texas in Austin – UT-Austin must begin allowing the concealed carrying of handguns on campus and in classrooms,” the lawsuit states.

[font size=1]-snip-[/font]