Rice University announced on Monday that it won’t avail itself of a new state law allowing concealed carry on college campuses.
“There is no evidence that allowing the carrying of guns on our campus will make the campus safer, and the most knowledgeable professional groups believe that guns will make campuses less safe,” President David Leebron said, accurately.
Rice joins Baylor, Trinity, Texas Christian University, and Southern Methodist University—all private schools that, per the new law, are allowed to ban guns “after consulting with students, staff, and faculty of the institution.”
Public universities like the University of Texas aren’t so lucky: The law only allows them to enact “reasonable rules” that cannot “generally prohibit or have the effect of generally prohibiting license holders from carrying concealed handguns on the campus.”