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Campus safety lawsuit dismissed in GA Supreme Court

Five Georgia professors’ challenge to an amendment to Georgia law about campus safety was dismissed by the Georgia Supreme Court on Tuesday.

The 2017 amendment legalized campus carry at all University System of Georgia schools. The professors argued that this change was unconstitutional because it overstepped the Board of Regents’ authority to govern.

However, the court unanimously dismissed the lawsuit on the grounds that the board acted independently to support campus carry. UGA professor Dr. John Knox was the lead plaintiff.

“I think the next steps are to focus really on the Board of Regents and hope that the board will return to a common sense educational policy that puts guns where they should be, and where they shouldn’t be,” Knox said.

He cites student safety as his primary motivation for the lawsuit.

“I think that campus carry provides too many opportunities for guns to be present on campus among a student body that I think most of us know is more anxious, more depressed than ever before,” Knox said. “When I was first notified about this case, that was what came to mind, not my own safety.”

Other UGA professors involved are from the microbiology and ecology departments.

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