Animal Law

Who knew how prescient the 1978 frat house film comedy Animal House would be? Now we have an animal law school.

“Here at Lewis & Clark College School of Law, students of ‘animal law’ are learning another way to change social practices that involve animals,” Peter Monaghan reports in the June 29th issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education. “They are just as passionate as animal-liberation advocates.”

“And they may become more influential.” Since “animal-liberation advocates” have been known to demonstrate their passion and use their influence by destroying university labs, look out.

“It’s a lot like where environmental law was in the 1970s,” Laura Ireland, founder and director of L & C’s National Center for Animal Law, told Monaghan. It should be noted that partly because of the manner in which environmental law developed since the 1970s, an oil refinery has not been constructed in the United States for 30 years.

Malcolm A. Kline is the executive director of Accuracy in Academia.