College professor wears bulletproof vest during class to protest new ‘campus carry law’
Kevin Willmott, a professor of film and media studies at Kansas University, teaches class while wearing a bulletproof vest in protest of a new law that would allow students to carry concealed weapons on campus...
Kevin Willmott, a professor of film and media studies at Kansas University, teaches class while wearing a bulletproof vest in protest of a new law that would allow students to carry concealed weapons on campus.
“Try to forget that I’m wearing a vest, and I’ll try to forget that you could be packing a .44 magnum,” Willmot told the class.
The “campus carry” law, which went into effect July 1, allows anyone over 21 to carry concealed weapons.
“The disturbing part of the policy for me is that it is concealed,” Willmott said. “It’s kind of a don’t ask, don’t tell kind of a policy, and so, you’re just kind of expected to forget that they’re probably there. And in that sense, you’re kind of living in a lie.”
He added that he was worried that the law would make it difficult to have discussions in the classroom about sensitive topics like race or religion.
“As a whole, it just puts a damper on free speech for everyone,” Willmott said.
What’s more, Willmott compared the law to the signs businesses would hang during the era of segregation, saying that laws like this were hidden and unnoticed except by those they affected.
“And that’s what this policy is all about,” Willmott said. “They don’t want it to be visible, because if it was visible, if everybody was walking around with a bulletproof vest on, people would say, ‘Oh my God, is this a warzone? What’s going on here?’ And yes, it is a warzone. No one’s started shooting yet. Yet. But we don’t know how many people have guns.”
Willmott outlined his reasons for wearing the vest in a handout called “Why I Decided to Teach in a Bulletproof Vest,” where he also mentioned that he had spoken with a Muslim colleague who was worried about the law and how it would “affect free speech in her class.”
“Students are scared, professors are scared,” Willmott said. “I think even the administration is frustrated and feeling a little helpless right now. And so, for me, the vest becomes a way for this invisible gun to be exposed.”
