The University of Wyoming Board of Trustees voted 6-5 Friday against allowing concealed carry in certain areas of campus, setting up a likely future confrontation with a Legislature that’s increasingly pushed to ease gun restrictions. The vote followed strong opposition from students, staff, faculty and other community members who cited concerns over safety, gun violence, declining enrollment, mental health issues and campus culture.  “A fundamental belief I’ve had ever since I got involved in education, is that guns do not belong in schools, period,” Trustee David Fall told the board.  Fall, alongside trustees Brian Bonner, Carol Linton, Macey Moore, Laura Schmid-Pizzato and Michelle Sullivan voted against the policy, while Chairman Kermit Brown and trustees Brad LaCroix, Jim Mathis, John McKinley and David True voted in favor of it.  This is unlikely the end of the discussion about guns at the state’s sole public four-year university campus, Brown suggested, pointing to the Legislature’s upcoming 2025 session. “I don’t want to front-run the Legislature either, but the handwriting is on the wall,” Brown said, encouraging board members to engage with lawmakers in person during the session if they don’t want “a result that you’re going to like a lot less than this rule.” “That goes not only for those that appeared here in person, but all those on campus that have, that are railing about this,” Brown said. “The time for railing to each other is over. It’s time to rail to your legislators.” For at least one trustee, the possibility of forthcoming legislation was not a persuasive argument.  “This seems like a giant disruption to our mission, and I feel like we’re being pushed into this to appease something that might be coming and might be even worse,” Trustee Macey Moore said. “And I just can’t do that.”  The policy started to take shape in August, when UW sought input on possible changes to its firearms regulations following a request from Gov. Mark Gordon.  In March, the governor rejected legislation that would have done away with most gun-free zones in Wyoming and would have allowed people with concealed carry permits to bring firearms into most public spaces overseen by the state.  “This is not a veto of the notion of repealing gun free zones, it is a request to approach this topic more transparently,” Gordon wrote in his veto letter. “With the authority already in place to address this issue at a local level, I call on school districts, community colleges, and the University to take up these difficult conversations again and establish policies and provisions for their districts.” The trustees were originally slated to vote Thursday, but moved the decision to Friday to consider making further adjustments to the proposal in light of public comment. No additional amendments were made between the two meetings, but earlier in the week additional parts of campus were added to the exempted areas including the dorms, Half Acre Recreation and Wellness Center, and the Early Care and Education Center. Trustee McKinley brought the motion to adopt the policy on Friday, and recommended that it be effective the first of the year.  McKinley said he thought the policy struck the right balance in recognizing the governor’s request of the university and dovetailing with its current regulations.  “Probably have not made anyone completely happy, one side or the other with this rule,” McKinley said. “But I think it reaches that delicate balance that we were trying to achieve.”  Ahead of the vote, a few ex-officio members of the board weighed in, including Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder.  “I think this is a really important step forward for the Second Amendment protections for people in Wyoming,” she said.  Ben Moritz, executive director of the Wyoming Community College Commission, told the board he wasn’t “lobbying one way or another” but said the university’s discussion was similar to conversations at community colleges across the state. (Gordon’s request in his veto letter also called on school districts and community colleges.) “I think the members of the Legislature want to have a good faith conversation with the state as well,” Moritz said. “And I think that for higher education to best represent itself, I think it behooves us to work to communicate across the colleges and university as transparently as possible, and to take any commonalities from what we’ve learned about policies and things like that, and present them with a shared voice.” President Ed Seidel’s recommendation to the board ahead of the vote was “to seriously consider the rule,” but said he would “accept the board’s wisdom on a vote on this.” After the vote, he thanked the trustees. “I want to thank every one of the trustees for deeply considering this issue,” Seidel said. “And I know it was complicated, and I know people voted on this based on a lot of thought that went into it.” This is breaking news and will be updated.  BEFORE YOU GO… If you learned something from this article, pay it forward and contribute to WyoFile. Our work is funded by readers like you who are committed to unbiased journalism that works for you, not for the algorithms. RELATED University of Wyoming trustees punt on concealed-carry vote as debate over guns on campus continues Officials move closer to allowing public to carry concealed guns in Wyoming Capitol The post University of Wyoming trustees reject concealed carry on campus appeared first on WyoFile .