Education - Dean Quits Over Gun Law
The University of Texas suffered a blow to its credibility with the loss of Fritz Steiner, the long time Dean of Architecture who built the school's architecture program into one of the nation's best. Steiner said he was getting out of the state of Texas because of the new state law which will allow students and others to carry concealed handguns on university campuses.
"I would have never applied for another job if not for campus carry," said Mr. Steiner. "I felt that I was going to be responsible for managing a law I didn't believe in."
Fritz Steiner declined past offers, preferring to stay at UT, which the AIA journal Architectural Record ranked seventh in the United States. But because of the gun law, he will take over as dean of University of Pennsylvania School of Design on 1 July. It's a step up into the Ivy League and a return to the school where he earned three postgraduate degrees.
"I grew up believing there was an appropriate place for guns and it was not in a place of higher education and higher learning," Steiner told Murdoch's Fox News.
UT chancellor William McCraven, a former Navy Seal, had spoken out against the measure last year: "I want to make sure that we make our campuses as safe as possible. And the addition of concealed weapons on campus just (doesn't) seem like a good idea to me."
There are not very many people in education who are happy with the new campus carry law, except for the gun fetishists who fear abstract "threats" lurking around every corner and under the bed. It was passed in 2015 by Texas state lawmakers, each tripping over the next to try and prove their "conservative" credentials and allegiance to the National Rifle Association, which funnels millions of dollars to the campaign chests of obedient legislators. Governor Greg Abbot signed the bill into law at a shooting range.
Reportedly, Steiner's job isn't the only opening in Texas' colleges and universities. Rumors abound of a faculty exodus - a brain drain, not that Texas ever respected brains - as even tenured educators make plans to leave. And the new law is already having a chilling effect in and out of the classroom.
The University of Houston recently held a faculty meeting to discuss how to handle the specter of armed students beginning on 1 August, and offered advice such as: "Be careful discussing sensitive topics"; "Drop certain topics from your curriculum"; "Limit student access off hours".
So much for the robust exchange and discussion of ideas in the state of Texas.