Resolution on Firearms

To Fellow Members of the KU Community

            On December 4, the History Department at the University of Kansas approved the resolution below on the topic of firearms on campus.  We, like so many of our colleagues and students, are deeply concerned by the threat to public safety.  For many of us, the reality of the dangers came home on September 14, 2015, when Professor Ethan Schmidt of Delta State University in Mississippi was a victim of gun violence, shot dead in his office by a disturbed colleague.  Ethan was a 2007 PhD graduate of our department, an exemplary scholar and teacher, a husband and father, a treasured friend, and a loyal Jayhawk.  We honor his memory by calling for policies that will prevent such tragedies in the future.

Eve Levin

Chair, History Department

University of Kansas

History Department Resolution on Firearms on Campus

Approved by the Department on December 4, 2015

Distinguished professors at Kansas State University wrote a letter to state legislators on December 2, 2015, regarding guns on university campuses. The Department of History at the University of Kansas endorses the letter.  We agree universities should have "the authority to restrict firearms if they believe them incompatible with the function and mission of their campus."  The University of Kansas has, like Kansas State, restricted firearms, and we strongly support the policy.  We also endorse the position taken by our national professional organization, the American Historical Association.  On November 20, 2015, it joined 28 other scholarly societies in expressing deep concern that concealed carry laws affect freedom of expression and "introduce serious safety threats on college campuses with a resulting harmful effect on students and professors".