AUSTIN - Students, alumni and spectators eagerly snatched up more than 4,500 donated dildos Tuesday evening at the University of Texas at Austin, preparing to assuage their frustration over a new state law allowing handguns to be carried on public university campuses.
Cocks Not Glocks, a protest group formed last fall, is urging students and others to openly carry the sex toys around campus, offering a multicolored counterpoint to the concealed weapons that holders of handgun licenses can now legally carry inside UT classrooms and most buildings.
“We want these dildos on backpacks as long as there are concealed handguns in backpacks,” said Ana López, a UT sophomore and one of the Cocks Not Glocks organizers.
Tuesday night’s distribution — which featured dildo juggling and the sale of t-shirts with slogans such as "Take It and Come" — was a prelude to an anti-campus carry rally planned for Wednesday, the semester's first full day of classes.
Greg Abbott signed it into law last June, but implementation was delayed until Aug. 1 of this year so universities could devise plans for each campus.
resigned in February saying he “didn’t believe in” campus carry, and recently a federal judge denied the request of three professors who filed suit seeking an injunction to block implementation of the law.
The Cocks Not Glocks movement was created by UT alumna Jessica Jin last October after she learned that sex toys, but not firearms, would still be banned in classrooms.
“As long as you have a dick on your backpack, people will be thinking about the guns inside of other people backpacks” Jin said Tuesday, dildo strapped to her backpack.
On the Cocks Not Glocks Facebook event, Jin wrote: “The State of Texas has decided that it is not at all obnoxious to allow deadly concealed weapons in classrooms, however it does have strict rules about free sexual expression, to protect your innocence. You would receive a citation for taking a dildo to class before you would get in trouble for taking a gun to class. Heaven forbid the penis.”
UT’s obscenity policy states that “no person or organization will distribute or display on the campus any writing or visual image, or engage in any public performance, that is obscene ... as defined in Texas Penal Code, Section 43.21 or successor provisions.” But the dildo distribution was "protected political speech," university spokesman J.B. Bird said in an email.
“UT Austin students are free to express themselves peacefully on all issues,” he said. “The planned protests around campus carry appear to be examples of protected political speech. We ask that the conversations around this issue remain civil. We encourage students of all opinions to be a part of this and other discussions of public policy.”
Gina Hinojosa; and Nicole Golden of the Texas chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, among others. López, however, said she hopes the movement will continue past the first day of school.
Cocks Not Glocks, a protest group formed last fall, is urging students and others to openly carry the sex toys around campus, offering a multicolored counterpoint to the concealed weapons that holders of handgun licenses can now legally carry inside UT classrooms and most buildings.
“We want these dildos on backpacks as long as there are concealed handguns in backpacks,” said Ana López, a UT sophomore and one of the Cocks Not Glocks organizers.
Tuesday night’s distribution — which featured dildo juggling and the sale of t-shirts with slogans such as "Take It and Come" — was a prelude to an anti-campus carry rally planned for Wednesday, the semester's first full day of classes.
Greg Abbott signed it into law last June, but implementation was delayed until Aug. 1 of this year so universities could devise plans for each campus.
resigned in February saying he “didn’t believe in” campus carry, and recently a federal judge denied the request of three professors who filed suit seeking an injunction to block implementation of the law.
The Cocks Not Glocks movement was created by UT alumna Jessica Jin last October after she learned that sex toys, but not firearms, would still be banned in classrooms.
“As long as you have a dick on your backpack, people will be thinking about the guns inside of other people backpacks” Jin said Tuesday, dildo strapped to her backpack.
On the Cocks Not Glocks Facebook event, Jin wrote: “The State of Texas has decided that it is not at all obnoxious to allow deadly concealed weapons in classrooms, however it does have strict rules about free sexual expression, to protect your innocence. You would receive a citation for taking a dildo to class before you would get in trouble for taking a gun to class. Heaven forbid the penis.”
UT’s obscenity policy states that “no person or organization will distribute or display on the campus any writing or visual image, or engage in any public performance, that is obscene ... as defined in Texas Penal Code, Section 43.21 or successor provisions.” But the dildo distribution was "protected political speech," university spokesman J.B. Bird said in an email.
“UT Austin students are free to express themselves peacefully on all issues,” he said. “The planned protests around campus carry appear to be examples of protected political speech. We ask that the conversations around this issue remain civil. We encourage students of all opinions to be a part of this and other discussions of public policy.”
Gina Hinojosa; and Nicole Golden of the Texas chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, among others. López, however, said she hopes the movement will continue past the first day of school.
