Professor Emeritus Daniel Hamermesh has had it with Texas Campus Carry gun law
The official publication of the University of Texas Exes reported the following.
In a letter to UT president Greg Fenves this week, economics professor emeritus Daniel Hamermesh announced he will leave UT-Austin because of his concerns about guns on campus.
Hamermesh cited the fact that he teaches large courses with hundreds of students as a key reason for his decision.
“With a huge group of students my perception is that the risk that a disgruntled student might bring a gun into the classroom and start shooting at me has been substantially enhanced by the concealed-carry law,” he wrote. Hamermesh wrote that he will teach at the University of Sydney in Australia next fall instead.
Hamermesh told the Alcalde that his concerns about guns on campus were a major factor in his decision to leave UT, but not the only factor. “I have a lot of opportunities elsewhere,” he said. “I think I’d feel very differently if I didn’t teach large numbers of students. Most students here are fantastic, but in any group you’re going to get a small chance of having somebody who is out of his mind, and with 500 students that chance gets bigger.”
The professor pointed out in this post’s accompanying video that the campus carry law will make it much more difficulty for the university to recruit great professors as many would look elsewhere. They have choices and coming to a university where their life is at a higher risk is not worth it.
The professor also said he is not a martyr. He is lucky that he has options unlike many professors that are currently stuck at the University of Texas.
The reality is that one can envision a gradual exodus of faculty who can find comparable opportunity elsewhere. That Texas is allowing itself, a great state, to fall into a backward state mentality will hurt the state dearly in the long run.