July 2016
Last month, the AERA Council endorsed the American Scholarly Societies Joint Statement on “Campus Carry” Legislation. The statement was developed in November 2015 when 29 scholarly societies joined in opposing legislation designed to facilitate the carrying of guns on college campuses.
The ongoing pattern of gun violence on campus and elsewhere in U.S. society has led AERA to increase attention to this issue in programming and activities. In October 2015, AERA issued a joint statement with the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE) in the aftermath of the shooting at Umpqua Community College and held a special forum at the 2016 Annual Meeting, also jointly with ASHE, on “Guns and Campus Violence in Higher Education.”
“The loss of more innocent lives last week drives home the message that we must confront the gun violence epidemic as educators, leaders, and citizens,” said Felice J. Levine. “The classroom—may it be in an elementary school or on a college campus—must be a haven from the violence that too often afflicts the country. The first step is preventing the safety threats that are posed by ‘campus carry’ laws.”
American Scholarly Societies Joint Statement on “Campus Carry” Legislation The undersigned learned societies are deeply concerned about the impact of Texas’s new Campus Carry law on freedom of expression in Texas universities. The law, which was passed earlier this year and takes effect in 2016, allows licensed handgun carriers to bring concealed handguns into buildings on Texas campuses. Our societies are concerned that the Campus Carry law and similar laws in other states introduce serious safety threats on college campuses with a resulting harmful effect on students and professors.
American Academy of Religion American Anthropological Association American Antiquarian Society American Association for the History of Medicine American Educational Research Association American Folklore Society American Historical Association American Musicological Society American Philosophical Association American Political Science Association American Studies Association American Society for Aesthetics American Society for Environmental History American Sociological Association Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies Association of American Geographers College Art Association Latin American Studies Association Law and Society Association Linguistic Society of America Medieval Academy of America Middle East Studies Association Modern Language Association National Communication Association National Council on Public History Oral History Association Society for American Music Society of Biblical Literature Society for Ethnomusicology World History Association