POSTED BY THE AAUP
As students across the country walked out of school Wednesday—one month after the February 14 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida—and rallied for gun control, we see how powerful solidarity on this issue can be.
In an interview with the news program 60 Minutes over the weekend secretary of education Betsy DeVos said that arming teachers “should be an option.” We wholeheartedly disagree and stand against the idea of guns on campus.
Sign an open letter to DeVos now.
Screenshots of some of the 2,000+ Facebook users who adopted one of our profile frames saying no to guns in classrooms.
Once you sign, you’ll access a poster you can download and hang on your door or wall, making it clear that you won’t carry a gun in your classroom. If you’re active on Facebook, you can also add a Facebook frame to your profile picture. Hover your mouse over the frame and click “use frame” to add it to your picture; it’s a frame that you can use to declare that guns in the classroom should not be an option, whether you are currently teaching are not. The frame shown in the profile photos at right is available here.
Thanks for being active on this! Please share the letter with colleagues.
As we noted in our statement calling for gun control last week, gun violence is not a problem limited to high schools. Colleges and universities have been sites of mass shootings since the 1960s. The mere presence of guns on campus or in the classroom limits academic freedom, potentially affecting the choice of course materials, how far faculty members should press students to wrestle with unsettling ideas, and how trenchantly and forthrightly they can evaluate student work. In an interview with the news program 60 Minutes over the weekend, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos said arming teachers “should be an option.” Our message is clear and simple. We wholeheartedly disagree and stand against the idea of guns on campus. Add your name and comments now.
Students are learning (or rather being instructed and directed with) all the wrong lessons. They, and their DNC sponsors and academic handlers, have suspended the critical faculty of rational skepticism and the scientific method, in return for ideological indulgence. There are no third-party, verified, forensic investigation crime scene reports (and not even a public adjudicated hearing) upon which they can rely for facts. The students are effectively engaging in mob rule and obeying authority figures in their schools who are directing them to effectively lynch their imaginary enemy. They are also being exploited in a most unfortunate, if not venal, manner. And that alone tells most about the nature of this issue, and the motives of the special interests seeking to direct it. Advocates can’t make a case that can withstand adversarial trial and cross-examined evidence and testimony, so they will seek to bypass law and elicit feelings, hysteria, bias and anger, and all directed at suspending deliberation. This is a political lobbying act, not an act in law, reason and fact. It is interesting to observe how easily the academy, in general, will abandon the very foundations of pedagogy–skepticism and rational inquiry–when it suits them ideologically.
The young people have got it right. No less an authority than the late Dr. Paul Douglas, former Professor at the University of Chicago, U.S. Senator from Illinois (1948-1966), and Chairman of the National Commission on Urban Problems (appointed by President Lyndon Johnson), made statements in the 1969 report Building the American City about “citizens taking to the streets”, which were totally in sync with students demonstrating in the 1960s, and which would be totally in sync with students of today in the U.S. getting out in front on matters which directly affect their well-being, with gun control being a lead concern. As a graduate student at Northwestern University I was invited to share aspects of my urban information research with the Commission, and to suggest topics to include in the Commission’s research agenda. Perhaps as a sign that he was totally attuned to changing times, Dr. Douglas did not miss a beat when he learned that I was Canadian, what was important to him was that I was a young person with considered thoughts, and he wanted the Commission to hear them. I believe that Paul Douglas would be very impressed by the young people trying to bring sanity to gun access in the U.S., and that he would urge them to stay the course until the deed is done.