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Gary Francione recently announced that the |Animal Rights Law Clinic| would be shutting its doors. Although Francione says he remains committed to the animal rights cause and will continue to work and speak on animal rights-related issues, Francione cited the difficulties in running a law clinic along with changes in the animal rights movement for his decision to close the clinic.
On the latter claim, Francione wrote in a prepared statement that:
…the American animal rights movement has collapsed and has embraced a welfarist ideology in which I have no intellectual or professional interest. I openly (and quite happily) acknowledge that my views are out of step with a "movement" many of whose leaders and members are not even vegans or vegetarians, and that seeks primarily to make animal use and treatment more "humane" … if the "movement" does not embrace as part of its baseline ideology that the property status of animals is morally indefensible, then it seems unlikely that the legal system, which has also become more conservative over the past decade, will conclude otherwise.
On the problems involved in maintaining the law clinic, Francione complained, "The burden is exacerbated in these reactionary times as I am forced to waste more and more time responding to the efforts of animal exploitation organizations and conservative legislators who do not believe that a state university ought to have such a Clinic."
Being one of those people who questions whether a state university should have such a clinic, it is good to see pressure against animal rights activists paying off (and legitimate pressure at that, as opposed to the threats and acts of violence favored or condoned by so many in the animal rights movement).
On the other, hand Francione's claim that the animal rights movement has become a bunch of wishy washy animal welfarists does not seem to square with recent events. On the one hand, of course, the most successful animal organizations have always been (or at least been perceived as) welfarist organizations. But this has not stopped the most vocal and most fanatical of the strictly rightist groups from intensifying their activities. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is certainly as strong as ever, and Animal Liberation Front activity seems to be on the upswing with the widespread attacks on fur farms and the recent attack at the University of Minnesota.
If Francione's view were correct, it would certainly be something to celebrate but I think he is being a bit premature in declaring that the animal rights movement in America has "collapsed."