The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit [official website] on Thursday upheld [order, PDF] a district court’s decision to dismiss a group of University of Texas at Austin professors’ challenge to a Texas law permitting the concealed carry of handguns on campuses as well as a University-specific policy that prohibited professors from banning weapons in their classrooms.

The district court originally dismissed [order, PDF] the professors’ claims that the law and school policy violated the First and Second Amendments, as well as the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, in July 2017. The Fifth Circuit upheld the dismissal for lack of standing.

Circuit Judge Leslie Southwick wrote in regards to the First Amendment claims that lead plaintiff Professor Jennifer Glass “cannot manufacture standing by self-censoring her speech based on what she alleges to be a reasonable probability that concealed-carry license holders will intimidate professors and students,” explaining that an alleged harm does not meet a “certainly impending” standard.