SEC commissioner threatens to boycott entire state over gun bill that's close to passing
Could the University of Mississippi and Mississippi State become schools without a conference?
Southeastern Conference commissioner Greg Sankey is warning the two Mississippi schools that such a possibility exists.
Mississippi House Bill 1083 would allow gun owners who have enhanced concealed carry permits to file a complaint with the attorney general’s office and more easily sue if they believe a public agency has a gun ban or other policy in violation of new gun-rights law.
Current state law allows for open carry of weapons in public, concealed carry without a permit and, for those with an enhanced carry permit, the ability to carry in areas otherwise prohibited, such as university campuses, courthouses and government buildings.
In response to the bill — which the House approved Wednesday on an 80-29 vote — Sankey warned that other schools in the SEC might boycott playing in Mississippi because of safety concerns.
“Given the intense atmosphere surrounding athletic events, adding weapons increases meaningful safety concerns and is expected to negatively impact the intercollegiate athletics programs at your universities in several ways,” Sankey, a New York native, wrote in a letter to the leader of each school. “If HB 1083 is adopted to permit weapons in college sports venues, it is likely that competitors will decline opportunities to play in Oxford and Starkville, game officials will decline assignments, personal safety concerns will be used against Mississippi’s universities during the recruiting process and fan attendance will be negatively impacted.”
Mississippi State President Mark Keenum, who is also president of the SEC, is also opposed to the bill.
“We have a fundamental responsibility to protect our students, faculty, staff and visitors to our campus,” Keenum said in a statement. “In recent years [the college board] adopted policies to allow concealed weapons into ‘public’ venues on campus, but has not allowed firearms into areas determined ‘non-public’ such as classrooms and residence halls. We have great concerns about the prospect of a broad expansion of the existing [Institutions of Higher Learning] policies regarding firearms being brought onto campus because of the increased risk it would pose for every member of our campus community.”
Ole Miss Chancellor Jeffrey Vitter released a statement on the school’s stance, saying passing the law “would negatively impact the University of Mississippi’s ability to continue to uphold the safety and security for our students, faculty, staff, patients, and visitors on all our campuses.”
HB 1083 is designed primarily to clarify where those with enhanced permits can carry weapons. One section of state law says an enhanced permit holder can carry on school, community college or university property, while another says it’s illegal.
Under the proposed legislation, people with enhanced concealed carry permits can file a complaint with the attorney general’s office and more easily sue if they believe a public agency has a gun ban or other policy in violation of new gun-rights law.
The author of the legislation, state Rep. Andy Gipson, said since the original enhanced permit law passed in 2011, more than 67,000 state residents have obtained an enhanced carry permit — and those enhanced permit holders were already allowed, by law, to carry at sporting events on university grounds.
The SEC, however, bans guns from being brought into sporting events.
Gipson said the “veiled threats” of the SEC and university administrators were designed to repeal the state’s gun laws.
“Someone in the higher echelons of state bureaucracy is coordinating or attempting to coordinate a partial repeal of our state gun laws by veiled threats such as this,” Gipson wrote on Facebook. “Is this evidence of the ‘deep state’ manipulating and working against the people?”
The University of Arkansas feared the 2016 passing of House Bill 1249 — which allows concealed carry on all publicly owned land, including university campuses — would cost the school its SEC membership. The state added an amendment to exclude on-campus sports venues.
The bill in Mississippi will need to get through the state’s Senate and be signed by the governor to become law.
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