A working group crafted the bill to balance the concerns of the Utah System of Higher Education, which wants the right to ban all guns from campuses, and gun-rights advocates, who point to a 2004 Utah law that allows those holding concealed weapons permits to carry guns on campuses and in other previously protected areas.

The University of Utah sued over the law and eventually lost in the Utah Supreme Court last fall. It has filed a federal lawsuit over the issue, but pledged to drop the case if SB251 passes.

"There are serious questions about what would happen in federal court," Sen. Lyle Hillyard, R-Logan, said during the Senate debate. "The state of Utah has not had a lot of success in the 10th Circuit [Court] and I suspect in that case we might have something crammed down our throat."

The bill would enable faculty members to disallow guns in their offices and let students living on campus request roommates who don't hold concealed weapons permits, among other provisions.

"Is it all we would have liked?" said David Buhler, associate commissioner for the Utah System of Higher Education. "Of course not, but we think this is a workable compromise."

Gun-rights advocates opposing the bill say it permits discrimination against concealed-weapons holders. Opponents on the other side say the bill doesn't go far enough to limit concealed weapons on campus.

"I don't think I've had anyone contact me and say it's a good bill," Hillyard said. "They all say it's terrible."

The bill, sponsored by Sen. Gregory Bell, R-Fruit Heights, faced little debate Tuesday before senators voted 17 to 12 to pass it to the House. Sen. Howard Stephenson, R-Draper, asked what assurance legislators had that the compromise would prevent the higher education community from "chipping away at Second Amendment rights in the future."

In response, Bell read portions of a letter sent from Richard Kendell, Utah's commissioner of higher education, to House and Senate leaders. It said the U. would "permanently drop its litigation now pending in federal court."

"Furthermore, on behalf of the Utah System of Higher Education, I pledge that neither the system nor institutions within the system will seek any further amendments to provide additional exceptions to Utah's concealed carry laws," the letter said.

That concession comforted Stephenson and others who fundamentally object to the bill.

"I do have a problem with a professor presuming to tell me or any other law abiding citizen that I have to disarm myself and make myself vulnerable before walking into an office paid for by the taxpayers," said Sen. Mark Madsen, R-Lehi, who was part of the working group, which he characterized as a "clash of two completely different world views."

"If [SB251] passes and has the effect of stopping the lawsuit and de-escalating the rhetoric and bringing some calm, that would be some good it would do," he said.

nstricker@sltrib.com