Academic freedom at center of UT lawsuit
Federal judges to rule on professors’ right to challenge gun law.
The evolving debate over academic freedom at the University of Texas is now squarely before a federal appeals court considering three professors’ right to challenge the state’s campus carry gun law.
Correspondence from the professors’ lawyer, the state attorney general’s office and UT’s president — all of which take differ
ent positions on academic freedom — is now part of the court file. Whether the three letters will make any difference in how a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals eventually rules remains to be seen.
The dust-up over academic freedom has its roots in a brief filed in January by state Attorney General Ken Paxton and three lawyers in his office on behalf of the defendants in the case: Paxton, UT President Gregory L. Fenves and several current and former UT System regents.
Among other arguments, the defendants contend that academic freedom protects, at most, the autonomy of institutions, not individual professors. After the American-Statesman began asking UT faculty members and administrators about that stance, Fenves sent a letter July 18 to the current and incoming chairs of the Faculty Council declaring that “faculty members’ rights to academic freedom are well-established in higher education.” He
noted that such rights are also found in a UT System Board of Regents’ rule.
Renea Hicks, a lawyer for the three professors, sent a copy of Fenves’ letter to the 5th Circuit this week along with his own letter asserting that Fenves’ view “is inconsistent with the position” of the UT president in the court case and appears from the reference to a regents’ rule “to be inconsistent with the position of all UT officials.”
Jason R. LaFond, an assistant solicitor general with Paxton’s office, wrote in a letter to the 5th Circuit that Hicks’ argument “demonstrates a misunderstanding of the difference between a workplace policy and a constitutional right.” LaFond also noted that Fenves said in his letter to the faculty leaders that he was “unable to address any specific legal question.”
LaFond wrote that the UT president’s letter describes “a workplace policy, just like the campus carry policy, that employees of UT-Austin are expected to follow. It is not a constitutional right” that the three professors can enforce in a lawsuit.
Jennifer Lynn Glass, Lisa Moore and Mia Carter cite academic freedom as one of the reasons that they should be allowed to ban the concealed carry of handguns in their classrooms. They contend that the potential presence of weapons has a chilling effect on discussion of controversial topics.
Fenves has previously said handguns have no place on a college campus, declaring them “contrary to our mission of education and research, which is based on inquiry, free speech, and debate.” But he also has said he is required to comply with the state’s 2015 campus carry law, and in drafting rules for the Austin flagship, he concluded that banning guns from classrooms would have the effect of prohibiting them on campus, in violation of that law.
U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel of Austin dismissed the professors’ lawsuit in July 2017, ruling that they lack standing to assert their constitutional claims. The professors are asking the appeals court to revive the case.