U.S. Supreme Court won’t hear appeal of University of Michigan gun ban

The United States Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal in a long running case challenging the University of Michigan’s ban on firearms on campus, denying the petition on Monday. 

In Joshua Wade v. University of Michigan, the Michigan Court of Appeals previously ruled that the University’s ban was in line with other policies permitted by the Second Amendment which ban firearms in “sensitive places” like schools. 

According to the University’s brief to the Supreme Court, Wade is neither a student or faculty member, but a private citizen who “spend[s] a lot of time outdoors and in downtown Ann Arbor” and “believe[s] it is [his] constitutional right to carry a weapon on University property,” seeking a waiver to the University’s policy. When his waiver was denied, he sued the university, alleging violations of the Second Amendment and state law. 

In petitioning the Supreme Court, Wade’s attorney questioned “whether the Second and Fourteenth Amendments allow a criminal ordinance that prohibits mere possession of firearms on an entire poorly-delineated university campus, except by permission of a single government official with unfettered discretion, which is granted only for ‘extraordinary circumstances,” disputing the Court of Appeals’ classification of all university property as a “sensitive place”.

“The decision of the Court of Appeals, upheld by the Michigan Supreme Court’s denial of appeal, has significant and troubling consequences. By broadly designating the entire university campus as a ‘sensitive place,’ the court effectively nullifies the Second Amendment for thousands of individuals who live, work, or study on or near university property,” Wade’s attorney wrote. “This sweeping prohibition also chills the exercise of the right to bear arms for those who might pass through campus, where the boundary between university property and public space is often indistinguishable.”

The Supreme Court also denied an appeal in another Second Amendment case on Monday, where the State of Minnesota sought to challenge a ruling striking down a law restricting permits to carry a handgun in public to applicants 21 or older, which was upheld by a federal appeals court. 

While another federal appeals court struck down similar age restrictions in Pennsylvania, yet another court upheld the restrictions in Colorado. With similar age restriction cases pending in other jurisdictions, the attorneys for Minnesota argued the Court should either grant its petition, vacate the lower court’s decision and remand the case, or review the lower court’s decision to give direction to the lower courts set to hear these similar cases.