Yes, however, things are slightly different here. First, gun free zone signs only carry any weight in certain places (courthouse, mental hospital, elementary/high school, maybe someplace that's escaping my memory at the moment). Anyplace else may ask you to leave for any reason and you must do so or face tresspass charges (regardless of signs). Note: I am not advocating ignoring signs when they are posted, if a place clearly doesn't want you there, don't go. The exception to this are certain repositories of public information. At one point in time, Gonzaga's library was such a place; I believe it still holds documents and other things 'on-loan' with the requirement that they make it available to the public. As such, if you are there for that sort of ligitimate purpose, all they can do is require you to conceal your weapon. SPU and Gonzaga are the two Jesuit universities here in Washington, so there are some similarities between the two. I know that GU doesn't even have any gun free zone signs posted. Nor is there a publicly visible notice board for conduct which prohibits weapons. While you are correct that a parent who is found to have a weapon while visiting will be asked to leave, the parent may well not even be aware that weapons are prohibited to students and employees. Further, even in the student handbook, there is no prohibition on 'others' carrying, so even if a guest obtained the handbook or the personel policies and procedures manual, they would find no writen warning that they would be asked to leave if found carrying.
Difdi, you are more correct than I think you realise. Under certain circumstances, courts have said that you may give up certain rights. When you pay to go to a force-on-force training event, or enter a boxing ring, you are generally required to certify that you are weapons-free. The stated reason for this is everyone's safety. Note that the same justification is used to disarm students. As such, courts could hold that, by agreeing to be unarmed, you must follow that contract. However, at no point during the application process at GU is the student handbook presented to you for you to look over the terms of the rules. While I cannot speak to other universities, I imagine it is standard practice. Further, if you do not live with immediate family and do not obtain special permission, you are required to live on campus your first two years or until you are 21. The on campus housing is also weapons-free. Once again, while the fact that you must live on campus is explained during the application process, the rental agreement for living on campus is not presented to you at that time. Generally when a court finds clauses unconscionable due to violating protected rights of an individual, it is because abridgement the right is not critical to the contract, and the person agreeing to the contract is not specifically made aware of the intended breach. If I agree to come to your event and you say 'we have a resonable code of conduct we expect people to follow', and I agree, I'll be bound by that code of conduct. This remains true even if you never explicitly state you have a code of conduct, there is an implied code of conduct present when you go to a store, for example you are't generally supposed to move stuff around on the shelves. However, if that code of conduct includes permitting non-voluntary searches or other abridgments of my rights, which you did not specifically enumerate, it is likely that a court will say that you were acting in bad faith by sneaking them into the code of conduct. Since having the students unarmed is not critical to any but the P.E. classes, and the prohibition on weapons is tucked out of sight where you won't see it until you've turned down offers from other schools because you really want to go 'here', I don't think it's too hard to imagine how a decent court would rule. As for putting the degree on hold, you could sue before breaking the rule to have a court issue an opinion that part of the contract is unconscionable, but the rest is left in force. It would be risky, as the university would likely look for an excuse to get rid of you, in order to remove your standing in court, but it wouldn't put your 'education' on hold while fighting the lawsuit.
