Both Student Senate and a majority of the student body voted against recognizing concealed carry weapons licenses on university grounds.
The official stance was determined by the majority vote out of 96 total votes. Forty-eight votes were proportional to the student body votes determined through a referendum, and 48 votes were from the senate’s 48 voting members. Not all voting senate members were in attendance Wednesday.
A total of 65 votes were cast against recognizing concealed carry licenses, and 23 votes were cast in favor of recognizing concealed carry licenses. The referendum came as the result of a state bill passed in December that gives universities’ governing bodies the opportunity to approve concealed carry on college campuses.
“Not often do you get a direct say in what you want our campus to look like, so I love that (students) had this opportunity,” Sam Miller, president of the Ohio University College Democrats, said. “As far as the results went, we as an organization were often split on how we thought the vote should go. I personally am excited to see that students agree that concealed carry should not be permitted on this campus.”
The referendum polled students on OU’s Athens campus and all five regional campuses. In Athens, a majority of students voted against allowing concealed carry weapons, while a majority of students at the Chillicothe, Eastern, Southern, Lancaster and Zanesville OU branches voted for allowing concealed carry weapons.
Hannah Borowski, the Center for International Studies senator, compared Athens to California and regional campuses to states like Wyoming and Nebraska.
“We’ve all very well learned what the electoral college is after the past year, the pros and the cons, and I think this time we saw it happen in our own little local level,” Borowski said of the Athens campus results outweighing the results at branch campuses due to a difference in population.
Jack Melick, the College of Business senator, thought the voice of the regional campuses deserved consideration.
“While the Athens campus is 94 percent of the student vote, it’s one of those campuses,” he said. “We’re talking about this year of inclusion; we should want to consider these regional campuses.”
The number of students on Athens’ campus who voted in the referendum, 6,501, was more than triple the number of students who voted in the Student Senate election in March 2016.
“I think the massive turn out, the vote count of the referendum, really showed how much students will come out and put the effort to vote in when they care about issues,” Senate Vice President Courteney Muhl said. “Students cared very much about this issue, so hopefully this was a good example of the way Student Senate can impact student life on campus.”
Also at Wednesday’s meeting, senate passed resolutions to appoint senators, implement a new appointment process and assign the duties of the Parliamentarian to the Clerk of Court.
A resolution to allow vice commissioners to assume commissioner status was tabled.
