The irony here is that some of the college presidents being pressured to fall in line fully support gun control, they just haven’t signed the letter.

Total conformity is required.

Allie Grasgreen of Inside Higher Ed reports.

In the Crosshairs

In the two months since a couple of college presidents launched a campaign urging swift legislative action to prevent gun violence, the spotlight has been on the more than 370 top administrators who signed a letter demanding specific changes by policymakers. But now, some of the focus is starting to shift – to those who have not added their names to the list.

Some students and newspaper columnists are calling out their local presidents for not signing the open letter, which was made public just before Christmas and re-pitched in a press conference last week in Washington. Articles — like this one at the University of Richmond — report on what presidents haven’t done.

Although some presidents targeted in those articles – including those at Harvard and Yale Universities and the Universities of Richmond and Virginia — have endorsed a more general gun safety statement by the Association of American Universities, they have stayed mum about the more pointed (and potentially controversial) letter from the group calling itself College Presidents for Gun Safety.

The latter presidents endorsed “common-sense reforms” including: reinstating the ban on semiautomatic assault weapons and high-capacity magazines; requiring that every gun purchaser pass a criminal background check; requiring consumer safety standards for all guns; making gun trafficking a federal crime; and opposing legislation that allows guns on campuses.