Results: University of Texas Head Begrudgingly OKs Campus Gun Rules

Concealed handguns will be allowed in University of Texas classrooms but generally banned from dorms under rules begrudgingly approved Wednesday by the school's president, whose hand was forced by a new state law. Like many who study or work at the school in liberal Austin, President Greg Fenves opposes allowing guns on the roughly 50,000-student campus. Texas' universities had been gun-free zones under the state's previous concealed handgun laws, but the Republican-dominated Legislature voted last year to force public universities to allow license holders to bring their guns to campus starting Aug. 1. "I do not believe handguns belong on a university campus, so this decision has been the greatest challenge of my presidency to date," Fenves said in announcing his decision to adopt rules recommended by a campus study group in December. Gun-rights activists insist the right to have weapons on campus falls under the Second Amendment and they call it a critical self-defense measure. However, the so-called "campus carry" measure has met with fierce resistance from students, faculty and other staff, and even University of Texas System Chancellor William McRaven, the former head of U.S. Special Operations Command who directed the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden. "The presence of handguns at an institution of higher learning is contrary to our mission of education and research, which is based on inquiry, free speech, and debate," Fenves wrote in a letter to McRaven. Private schools are allowed to keep banning weapons and Fenves noted most have opted to do so, including Baylor, Rice, Southern Methodist and Texas Christian universities, the largest and most in influential private schools in the state.