Federal appeals court upholds Texas campus carry law

By Cassandra Pollock and Emma Platoff, Texas Tribune


The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday upheld Texas' campus carry law, delivering another clear victory to the state in a longshot, long-running lawsuit brought by University of Texas at Austin professors opposed to the law.

In July 2016, three professors claimed that a 2015 state law that allows licensed gun-owners to carry concealed weapons into most public university buildings would have a “chilling effect” on free speech in their classrooms. But a federal district judge threw out their case in July 2017, saying the professors didn’t present any “concrete evidence to substantiate their fears.”

Accepting that logic and advancing it yet further, a three-judge panel on the appeals court this week rebuffed the professors’ free speech claim as well as two other constitutional challenges they had made.

Like the lower court, the 5th Circuit panel found that the professors lacked standing to challenge the law because they had not sufficiently shown how it might harm them.

Read more: https://www.texastribune.org/2018/08/16/appeals-court-rejects-texas-campus-carry-lawsuit/