All of Kansas’ state university faculty bodies now formally oppose campus carry
Faculty at all six of Kansas’ state universities are now united in formally stating that they don’t want guns on their campuses.
Emphasizing that a statewide poll of all university employees showed 77 percent were against concealed carry on campuses, faculty leaders announced Tuesday that faculty senates from each of the Kansas Board of Regents universities have approved resolutions opposing campus carry.
KU Faculty Senate president Pam Keller, clinical professor of law, is chair of the KBOR Council of Faculty Senate Presidents.
“All six faculties are speaking with a single voice,” Keller said, in the news release from KBOR faculty. “It confirms what the Docking Institute poll told us over a year ago: The vast majority of faculty, as well as students and staff, believe ‘campus carry’ is a bad idea. It won’t make our campuses better or safer.”
KU’s full University Senate — comprising elected faculty, staff and student representatives — passed a resolution opposing campus carry “in the strongest possible terms” in December.
The final faculty senate to pass such a resolution was Pittsburg State University, which did so Feb. 27, according to the news release. Minutes from that meeting indicate that there was discussion about the resolution being “somewhat symbolic,” with uncertainty about its impact.
Barring a reversal by the state Legislature, the Kansas Personal and Family Protection Act will require state universities to allow lawfully carried concealed handguns on their campuses beginning July 1. That’s the date a provision that previously exempted public universities from the law will expire.
In preparation for implementing the change, the Kansas Board of Regents has adopted a new statewide weapons policy and approved new weapons policies for all the state universities.
The cited survey was prepared and administered by the Docking Institute of Public Affairs at Fort Hays State University, for the KBOR Council of Faculty Senate Presidents. Results were released in January 2016.
Overall, 70 percent of state university employees said they want state law amended so that guns won’t be allowed on campus starting in 2017, according to the survey. Seven percent want to keep the current law but extend universities’ exemption past 2017.
On the other side, 19 percent of state university employees said they want to allow guns on campus, according to the survey.
The remaining 4 percent of those polled answered “don’t know,” according to the survey.
The survey also showed that 54 percent of respondents said campus carry would negatively affect how they teach; 52 percent said it would limit academic freedom; and 51 percent said it would make them less likely to work at their respective schools.
Percentage-wise, KU’s Lawrence campus was overwhelmingly more anti-gun than other schools in almost every category of the survey.
Remaining exempt from campus carry is “a means of preserving the spirit of an open academic and educational framework on our campus where speech, thought and personal growth . . . can be encouraged without inhibitions,” according to a portion of Wichita State University’s faculty resolution shared in the news release.