Ban Guns, Not Students
In 2017, the Georgia Legislature passed HB280, which allows any individual 21 or older who possesses a Georgia concealed carry license may, as well as licenses issued by other states recognized in Georgia, carry a concealed weapon on a public college or university campus in Georgia.
The bill passed the same week as HB 37, the nation’s first and only Anti-Sanctuary Campus Bill, which threatens to take away the tax-exempt status of any private university that declared itself a sanctuary for undocumented students. The law was passed on the 100-year anniversary of a 1917 statute that threatened to take away the tax-exempt status of any university that admitted a Black student.
The Anti-Sanctuary Bill extended Georgia’s discriminatory and punitive laws targeting undocumented youth. In 2010, the Georgia Board of Regents passed Policy 4.1.6, banning undocumented students from admission to the top public universities in the state, including the University of Georgia (UGA). The ban went into effect in 2011, the same year UGA was celebrating the 50th anniversary of the racial desegregation of the university.
While 23 states and Washington DC allow undocumented student residents to access public higher education with in-state tuition, Georgia remains one of only three states in the country - in addition to South Carolina and Alabama - to have a form of admissions ban against students in public higher education.
As a result of the combination of these laws and policies, the University of Georgia today allows guns in classrooms, but not undocumented students.
No further commentary is needed to demonstrate the moral deprivation of this state.
And we’ll continue to shout @fu_georgia in every classroom, every board room, and every senate chamber until we have a state - and a country - that bans guns, not students, from our schools.
