Rutgers Animal Rights Law Clinic Calls It Quits
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.”
Tags: Gary Francione, Law Movement, Rutgers University Animal Rights Law Center