Animal rights were a source of debate long before the UC
system was formed, but over the last five years, actions taken by both sides
have escalated, bringing the issue to a head with increasingly violent
animal-rights protests and stringent new UC-sponsored legislation.
The first major victory for animal-rights groups in the
recent past occurred in 2003. Protesters gathered outside UCSD’s
on Feb. 19 to challenge a voluntary
of
The lab used 24 privately bred dogs, valued at $576 each, for a half-day
experiment involving vivisection and ending with the euthanization of the
animals. Fifty out of 120 medical school students opted to skip the quarter’s
first lab, and the lab was canceled completely in August 2003.
Three years later, in 2006, UCLA began experiencing its
first major violent protests, having been the site of many nonviolent marches
in previous years.
According to an anonymous July 11 communique released by the
North American Animal Liberation Press Office, the Animal Liberation Front
placed a Molotov cocktail on UCLA researcher Lynn Fairbanks’ doorstep on June
30 as retaliation for “breeding monkeys for painful addiction experiments.”
However, a statement released by the FBI did not confirm that
was the target of the attack and said the incendiary device — actually placed
on the doorstep of
70-year-old neighbor — failed to ignite.
In February 2007, the Burnham Institute for Medical
Research, the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, the Scripps Research
Institute and UCSD formed the San Diego Research Ethics Consortium. As of
December 2007, all four institutions have adopted a common ethics training
requirement, offered through SDREC. Courses focus on the ethics of stem-cell
research as well as other ethical issues such as social responsibility and the
treatment of human and animal subjects.
The UCLA protests returned with full force on
along with one gallon of fuel, was found next to UCLA researcher Arthur
Rosenbaum’s vehicle. NAALPO press officer Jerry Vlasak said Rosenbaum “glues
steel coils onto the eyes of primates,” and a group calling itself the Animal
Liberation Brigade claimed responsibility in a June 27 communique released by
NAALPO.
According to Newsweek, Rosenbaum’s wife received a package
weeks later containing animal fur and razor blades from someone claiming to be
with ALF, threatening, “What he does to animals, we will do to you.”
ALF also claimed responsibility for flooding UCLA researcher
Edythe London’s
home on Oct. 20. The group inserted a hosepipe into a broken window and
reportedly caused more than $20,000 in water damage.
Two months later, on Dec. 5, the UCSD School of Medicine
complex was evacuated for seven hours when former UCSD employee Richard Sills
Jr. threatened to detonate multiple explosives unless all animals used in UCSD
research facilities were released. The bomb threat, centered on a suspicious
package found in the
was ultimately determined to be a hoax.
Then on
time with an incendiary device left at her home. Although the device did ignite
and cause damage, no one is believed to have been present when the incident
occurred.
UCLA responded to this latest attack by filing a lawsuit on
Feb. 21 aimed at stopping the threats. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge
Gerald Rosenberg granted a temporary restraining order against the UCLA Primate
Freedom Project, ALF, ALB and five individuals believed to affiliate with the
groups. According to a UCLA press release, under the order, the defendants are
prohibited from harassing UCLA personnel or coming within 50 feet of them
during a demonstration. It also requires extremists to remove personal
information about researchers from their Web sites.
“We’re dealing with terrorist organizations and people who
are knowingly involving themselves with these terrorist organizations,” said
John Hueston, a lawyer for UCLA, in a Feb. 27 Newsweek article.
Director of the UCLA Primate Freedom Project Jean Green told
Newsweek she would comply with the restraining order but said, “We’re not going
to just lay down.” Green has since removed the researchers’ addresses from her
Web site, but reportedly hinted to Newsweek that she may continue the fight
through e-mail.
Three days later, on Feb. 24, six masked intruders attempted
to force their way into a UC Santa Cruz researcher’s residence and fled after a
confrontation that involved a physical attack on the researcher’s husband.
“An attempted home
invasion by masked perpetrators is not free speech — it is a criminal act that
threatens, intimidates and stifles academic freedom,” UCSC Chancellor George
Blumenthal said in a statement.
In March, UC Berkeley campus officials followed suit and
said they were attempting to sue for a restraining order against informally
organized activists who stage weekly demonstrations outside at least six
researchers’ homes.
“Calling a person an animal abuser and a puppy killer is
protected speech,” said animal-rights attorney Christine Garcia, according to a
March 5 article in the Daily Cal. “Constitutionally protected speech is not
harassment.”
Later that same month, the UC system announced it is seeking
to expand its UCLA restraining order to a permanent systemwide injunction,
protecting all 10 UC campuses from the defendants named in the temporary
restraining order granted in February.
Currently, the UC system is sponsoring an extensive state
assembly bill aimed at protecting its researchers from animal-rights groups.
The bill — the California Animal Enterprise Protection Act, Assembly Bill 2296
— is authored by Assemblyman Gene Mullin (D-South San Francisco) and was passed
by a 9-0 vote in the state’s judiciary committee on April 17.
According to an analysis released by the judiciary
committee, the bill prohibits posting private information, such as a home
address, telephone number or picture, about any animal enterprise employee on
the Internet. An “animal enterprise,” as defined by the bill, would not only
include nonprofit and academic organizations involved in animal research and
testing but many commercial businesses engaged in analytical testing and
product development.
Anyone who attempts to interfere with an animal enterprise
with acts including, but not limited to, nonviolent intimidation and destroying
property would be guilty of a misdemeanor. Depending on the act, offenders
could face up to one year in a county jail and a fine of up to $25,000, with
fines being increased for subsequent offenders.
The committee’s analysis also said the bill “proposes,
apparently in unprecedented fashion, that the employer of an alleged victim
would have standing to sue [for damages and injunctive relief] even if the
person actually aggrieved chooses not to sue.”
The committee warned the definition of “animal enterprises”
may be too general, setting a precedent for extending protections to
controversial enterprises such as tobacco and oil companies.
Civil liberties groups such as the American Civil Liberties
Union have protested the bill, claiming it may prohibit the posting of accurate
information on the Internet and carries criminal penalties for conduct related
to public protest.
Vlasak expects both the restraining order and the
legislation in progress will have no effect on the activity of underground
organizations such as ALF.
“If someone’s willing to risk 20 years of prison by …
burning a building used for animal torture, I don’t think they’re going to
worry about a silly restraining order that UCLA cooks up,” Vlasak said. “The
same goes for AB 2296.”
He attributed the steadily rising numbers of animal rights
protests and attacks over the last five years to the ineffectiveness of
peaceful protests.
“I think out of frustration of legal means, with passing
laws, with peacefully protesting, with writing letters to congressmen — all
those sorts of things — after seeing those techniques frustrated I think people
have said ‘Well, if this doesn’t work, then … we should try something
different,” Vlasak said. “And that’s when I think groups like the ALF and other
organizations step up to the plate and say, ‘… We’re going to make sure that
you’re not going to ignore us.’”
Vlasak said that although ALF has a specific set of
guidelines in place — allowing for property damage, the liberation of animals
and economic sabotage — they denounce violence toward humans or animals.
However, he said, “Other organizations don’t have those
guidelines.”
Vlasak also argued the UC system is mistakenly funding
unnecessary research that could be used for legitimate forms of treatment.
“It’s ridiculous UC continues to waste all this taxpayer
money and inflict an unimaginable amount of suffering on animals when they
could be doing the right thing and promoting health for human beings,” he said.
However, UC President Robert C. Dynes argued otherwise in an
April 10 letter written to Dave Jones, the chair of the assembly judiciary
committee.
“Radiation therapy and other cancer treatments, the
development of vaccines, organ transplantation and many mental health
treatments have all resulted in part from work done on animals,” Dynes said.
“When such work is disrupted by the actions used by extreme animal-rights
activists, the deleterious impact on important research can … delay the
development of greatly needed and potentially lifesaving therapies.”
Dynes maintained the bill is not about limiting protestors’
free speech, but keeping researchers and their families safe.
“This legislation is an important step toward ensuring that
state prosecutors and law enforcement officials have the tools they need to
prevent increasingly threatening and destructive tactics employed by extreme
animal-rights activists without jeopardizing legitimate and lawful expressions
of free speech,” he said.
AB 2296 will be heard within the Assembly Appropriations
Committee in the next few weeks.
