The University of Wyoming Board of Trustees voted 6-5 Friday against allowing concealed carry in certain areas of campus, setting up a likely future confrontation with a Legislature that’s increasingly pushed to ease gun restrictions.
The vote followed strong opposition from students, staff, faculty and other community members who cited concerns over safety, gun violence, declining enrollment, mental health issues and campus culture.
“A fundamental belief I’ve had ever since I got involved in education, is that guns do not belong in schools, period,” Trustee David Fall told the board.
Fall, alongside trustees Brad Bonner, Carol Linton, Macey Moore, Laura Schmid-Pizzato and Michelle Sullivan voted against the policy, while Chairman Kermit Brown and trustees Brad LaCroix, Jim Mathis, John McKinley and David True voted in favor of it.
This is unlikely the end of the discussion about guns at the state’s sole public four-year university campus, Brown suggested, pointing to the Legislature’s upcoming 2025 session.
“I don’t want to front-run the Legislature either, but the handwriting is on the wall,” Brown said, encouraging board members to engage with lawmakers in person during the session if they don’t want “a result that you’re going to like a lot less than this rule.”
“That goes not only for those that appeared here in person, but all those on campus that have, that are railing about this,” Brown said. “The time for railing to each other is over. It’s time to rail to your legislators.”
For at least one trustee, the possibility of forthcoming legislation was not a persuasive argument.
“This seems like a giant disruption to our mission, and I feel like we’re being pushed into this to appease something that might be coming and might be even worse,” Trustee Macey Moore said. “And I just can’t do that.”
The policy started to take shape in August, when UW sought input on possible changes to its firearms regulations following a request from Gov. Mark Gordon.
In March, the governor rejected legislation that would have done away with most gun-free zones in Wyoming and would have allowed people with concealed carry permits to bring firearms into most public spaces overseen by the state.
“This is not a veto of the notion of repealing gun free zones, it is a request to approach this topic more transparently,” Gordon wrote in his veto letter. “With the authority already in place to address this issue at a local level, I call on school districts, community colleges, and the University to take up these difficult conversations again and establish policies and provisions for their districts.”
The trustees were originally slated to vote Thursday, but moved the decision to Friday to consider making further adjustments to the proposal in light of public comment. No additional amendments were made between the two meetings, but earlier in the week additional parts of campus were added to the exempted areas including the dorms, Half Acre Recreation and Wellness Center, and the Early Care and Education Center.
Trustee McKinley brought the motion to adopt the policy on Friday, and recommended that it be effective the first of the year.
McKinley said he thought the policy struck the right balance in recognizing the governor’s request of the university and dovetailing with its current regulations.
“Probably have not made anyone completely happy, one side or the other with this rule,” McKinley said. “But I think it reaches that delicate balance that we were trying to achieve.”
Ahead of the vote, a few ex-officio members of the board weighed in, including Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder.
“I think this is a really important step forward for the Second Amendment protections for people in Wyoming,” she said.
Ben Moritz, executive director of the Wyoming Community College Commission, told the board he wasn’t “lobbying one way or another” but said the university’s discussion was similar to conversations at community colleges across the state. (Gordon’s request in his veto letter also called on school districts and community colleges.)
“I think the members of the Legislature want to have a good faith conversation with the state as well,” Moritz said. “And I think that for higher education to best represent itself, I think it behooves us to work to communicate across the colleges and university as transparently as possible, and to take any commonalities from what we’ve learned about policies and things like that, and present them with a shared voice.”
President Ed Seidel’s recommendation to the board ahead of the vote was “to seriously consider the rule,” but said he would “accept the board’s wisdom on a vote on this.”
After the vote, he thanked the trustees.
“I want to thank every one of the trustees for deeply considering this issue,” Seidel said. “And I know it was complicated, and I know people voted on this based on a lot of thought that went into it.”
Correction: This story has been updated to correct Brad Bonner’s first name. —Ed.
Temporary Fix. Would I send my kid to an institution with a bunch of young cowboys potentially carrying firearms? No! The idea is insanity and I am fairly sure that that many parents will likely feel the same. I am equally sure that the legislature will override the trustees as they did with diversity issue. Part of Wyoming’s rapid decline into an abyss of mediocrity.
It appears that our leaders in ” education” may be the reason we are so far behind in leadership toward future that would build a place where folks want to come and contribute to developing a better Wyoming. Instead we have depended on our past wealth not noticing that it is running out!
This might be the only intelligent decision that i’ve seen in Wyoming for a long time. I wouldn’t depend on the same decision making skills from the Wyoming freedumb caucus.
I guess, in your view, denying a young lady the means to lawfully defend herself in the face of a sexual assault is real progress.
Your reasoning is about as accurate as your climate misinformation.
Yeah? Go ahead and explain the “inaccuracy” in my reasoning instead of making a simple snide remark. Better yet, tell us what might have saved the life of Laken Riley and other lesser knowns in her situation. (And since the editors allowed you take a cheap shot on my “climate misinformation” gathered while employed as the USFS R2 Regional Headquarters Information Assistant to the Rocky Mountain Regional Forester (for nine years) and co-manager of the Colorado BLM State Office Public Room and trained by the earth scientists in charge of the National Core Lab at the Denver Federal Center in order to serve the public in their public room (shut down in 2013), ….maybe they’ll be kind enough to publish THIS response.
Anyone can look up climate change info at the IPCC. I would suggest that folks do that.
I don’t know if a gun would have saved this poor lady or not, but I doubt it. And you don’t know either. I do believe the issue is, should a person be able to bring a gun inside a public building. No they should not.
People are going to carry on campus regardless. Get used to it.
The 68th Wyoming Legislature will most likely override the trustees’ vote lock, stock, and barrel. They sometimes forget that the 2nd Amendment has 26 other brothers and sisters that also deserve our protection and respect. Should our elected officials happen to show the slightest tinge of disregard or distain toward those of us who have been and will be vigorously exercising our 1st Amendment duty to voice our displeasure with any blanket ban on gun-free zones in our schools; I hope and suggest that we will each consider taking this as a wonderful opportunity to introduce these folks to The 7th, The 9th, and The 11th members of the clan in our State and Federal Court systems.
.
At least there are some people in this state with a brain cell! If you’ve ever been through Alice training you would know that schools are no place for guns!
Thanks go to the members of the UW Board of Trustees who have the good sense and personal strength to reject the push to allow concealed weapons on the UW campus. The writing may be on the wall for what our coming legislature has in mind, but that doesn’t mean we abandon our knowledge, our experience, and our principles regarding a free and safe public education. Shame on Megan Degenfelder for toeing the line rather than standing with the students, staff and administrators who work to provide that education here in Wyoming.
Allowing potential rape victims to effect a legal armed self-defense isn’t juxtaposed to “safe public education.” Rather, assuring criminals have a safe environment to engage in crime is a general detriment to public safety anywhere.
For a change, Kermit is right. This matter was ALWAYS bound to be decided by the Wyoming Legislature, as I wrote in the Branding Iron (the UW student paper) last month. To make their voices heard on the matter, citizens will need to go to Cheyenne. Discussions at UW are only useful as fodder for that debate, if at all.
As a former Wyoming Speaker of the House, Kermit Brown certainly knows the working of the legislature. In his day railing the legislature worked because public opinion and comment were important. Perhaps Mr. Brown does not realize that the freedumb caucus does not care about the people; then again, maybe he does.
well said, the freedumb caucus. Hi to Mike. I don’t want to see more guns anywhere. Period. And I don’t support guns on any
school grounds, or on the Capitol. A girl defending herself from rape is better off with a few good wrestling moves.
Or bear spray