It was built in 1937 with Indiana limestone, according to a history on UT’s website, and serves as “the University’s most distinguishing landmark and as a symbol of academic excellence and personal opportunity.”Īdministrators have struggled for decades over how to publicly acknowledge that day. “Those Longhorns had the right idea back in 1966,” Clemens wrote. The resistance demonstrated that day should be admired, not discouraged, he maintained. “Liberal critics deplore that the new law takes effect on the anniversary of the ‘gun-related’ Texas Tower massacre,” David Clemens, a Monterey Peninsula College professor, wrote in mid-July in a National Review blog post, “but the timing couldn’t be more appropriate.” The student had apparently just been outside shooting at Whitman and said he needed to check on his grade.Ĭampus concealed-carry supporters see Monday’s convergence as a fortuitous coincidence. Friedman, now 77 and still teaching, remembers being terrified as Whitman landed shots near his office, but also afterward when he encountered a student in the hallway carrying a rifle. He considers it a calculated attempt by gun rights advocates to overshadow the anniversary. I don’t see them as linked.”Īlan Friedman, who started teaching English at UT in 1964, certainly does. “We are dealing with the implementation of the law and the anniversary as separate issues. “By having it start earlier, the law will be fully implemented before the fall semester begins,” UT President Gregory L. Though Texas laws typically go into effect on Sept. 1, most Texas universities start in mid-August and needed the law in place sooner, he explained in a statement. Brian Birdwell, who wrote the law, said that the date was not intentionally tied to the Whitman anniversary. “Guns preserved the peace and kept people safe.” “The upshot of the Whitman story is that these armed students and citizens kept human carnage to a minimum,” David Codrea, a prominent gun rights advocate, wrote last year in a post on. In their push to expand campus-carry laws across the country, they have cited the impromptu cavalry that took on Whitman as evidence that armed law-abiding citizens are the best defense against mass shooters. The extraordinary timing of the new law, which permits only concealed weapons, distresses gun-control supporters and survivors of Whitman’s attack. That same day, Texas becomes the nation’s eighth state to allow students to brings guns onto university campuses and, in some cases, into classrooms and dorms. On Monday, survivors will attend the unveiling of a memorial on the 50th anniversary of Whitman’s rampage, which left 17 dead and more than 30 wounded. “There was a lot of lead flying up there at him.” “These guys were pretty good shots,” said Bill Helmer, then a graduate student who witnessed the mayhem.
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