OU allows decorative weapons on campus

by Jeremy Boren
Senior Campus Writer

Inoperable weapons now qualify as approved office decorations at Ohio University, according to changes to OU’s Workplace Violence Policy administrators announced yesterday.

Controversy erupted in January when OU Police Department officials asked journalism professor Patrick Washburn to remove an antique rifle from his office on the first floor of Scripps Hall. A complaint from another employee drew attention to OU’s violence policy against firearms. The gun hung in Washburn’s office for about 15 years before he removed it in January.

Under the changed policy, if Washburn or any faculty member wants to display a gun or weapon of personal significance, that person must notify campus police to have them ensure the weapon does not work, said Leesa Brown, university spokeswoman.

But Washburn has no intention of approving his 1878 Springfield rifle with campus safety to return it to his office unless OU administrators concede that they should scrutinize other weapons on campus, such as a cannon used during football games and weapons displayed in Alden Library.

“I’ll be damned if I’m going to do something to (my rifle) if they’re not going to do something to theirs,” Washburn said. “I don’t like this kind of selective enforcement; I think that stinks.”

In addition to decorative pieces, the policy allows for campus police officer firearms, military science training weapons, archive collections and theatrical prop guns on campus.

Brown said the change focuses primarily on faculty members’ conduct and not on specific weapons.

“Let’s say you have a slingshot on your desk,” Brown said. “That’s not what the policy is explicit about ­ it’s explicit about threatening behavior.”

North said he authored the change in OU’s violence policy to protect students and employees — not to limit free speech or expression.

A flood of calls from Second Amendment groups, including the National Rifle Association, prompted a recent response from OU President Robert Glidden.

In a letter to concerned gun advocates, alumni, community members and others, Glidden said, “There is a history of poor professional relations between Professor Washburn and several of his colleagues. Unfortunately, this has gone beyond the petty difference that one sometimes finds among academic officials.”

A copy of the new policy is available on the OU Web site, http://www.ohiou.edu/policy/41-135.html, under “Workplace Violence.” The original policy went into effect in December 2000.