Utah teacher created a 'Second Amendment zone' with tape

A teacher in Utah wanted to expand the concept of "free speech zones" to restrict the Second Amendment on campus.

Students in the state are legally allowed to concealed carry weapons on public campuses so long as they have permits, but that didn't stop an unidentified graduate teaching assistant at the University of Utah from creating a 3x3 foot "Second Amendment zone" with masking tape in her classroom recently. "If you feel that it is somehow at all appropriate to bring a gun to class (hint: it is not — this is absurd, antisocial, and frightening behavior), you are restricted to spending your time in class in my ‘Second Amendment zone’ a 3x3 taped square on the floor in the very back of the classroom, that will be shared with all other gun carriers," the teacher wrote in her syllabus, according to a report in the Salt Lake Tribune.

What's more, she tried justifying her bizarre masking-tape creation by pointing to the university's "free speech zone" policy, arguing, "because the University of Utah reserves the right to restrict elements of the First Amendment on campus to specifically sanctioned ‘free speech zones’ I am reserving the right to restrict elements of the Second Amendment in my own classroom."

There's more than one flaw in her logic. For example, the school doesn't even have free speech zones anymore. As the Salt Lake Tribune noted, "While the U. previously had designated areas for students to say what they wanted, such as outside the Union building, the Utah Legislature passed a bill that would become law in 2017, requiring all higher education institutions to drop those limitations and expand free speech to any outside spaces."

A university spokesman told the Tribune on Tuesday the teacher had apologized and been reassigned from the class.

from: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/utah-teacher-created-a-second...