When I return to the University of North Texas for the fall semester, I’ll have no way of knowing who is carrying a firearm. As of August 1, students, faculty and staff with concealed weapon permits may carry guns on public university campuses under a law approved last year.
I’m a Black female professor working in a Texas town with a prominent Confederate memorial. I teach journalism courses that spark debate about race, gender and nationality. I have serious reservations about campus carry.
Proponents of the new law claim that, if more people are armed at institutions of higher learning, we will all be safer. Days after he signed the bill, Gov. Greg Abbott declared that would-be shooters in Texas would now understand that “somebody is going to be watching them and have the ability to do something about it” if they open fire on a college campus.
But I don’t feel safer. The idea of working in an environment where anyone may have a gun makes me feel perpetually under threat. I’m afraid of accidents, mostly, but also of misplaced anger and emotional distress. I’m afraid that situations which occur every day on college campuses, such as a classroom debate or an office visit about grades, will escalate into deadly shooting.
My mother wants me to quit. Friends send me job ads in other states. A few high-profile academics — including a University of Texas dean and a professor emeritus — already have made a public show of leaving. But the job market makes it hard for me to consider leaving my first tenure-track position. Even now, while guns still are technically banned from campus, they often show up in campus crime reports. It would be naive to think those incidents won’t increase when more permit holders can legally bring their guns to campus.
To be absolutely clear: I am not anti-gun. I have never touched a firearm, though I’ve long been interested in obtaining a license to own and carry one. I live alone, and I’m often on the road. Having a tool that would allow me an extra measure of protection is attractive. I’ve also considered carrying a gun as matter of liberation — the kind preached by Black militants such as Malcolm X and Fred Hampton, who advocated for gun ownership as a means of protecting Black bodies like mine from all types of threats.
But I’m unsettled by the notion of entire university communities being motivated by fear to take up arms. I also wonder how people will react to Black students, staff and faculty who choose to arm themselves. It’s clear not everyone is so keen on Black folks using guns for self defense. I’m mindful of Marissa Alexander, a Black woman who fired a warning shot in her own garage to ward off an attack from her abusive ex-husband. That shot ― which injured no one ― earned her a 20-year jail sentence in Florida, a state that allows people to “stand their ground” when they cannot escape imminent threat.
