Eco-terrorism in Higher Education

America’s universities are both the major targets as well as the incubators of a rapidly growing class of criminals—eco-terrorists.

“The Department of Justice named them the number one domestic terrorist threat,” Sen. James M. Inhofe, R-Oklahoma, told a college-age audience at the Eagle Forum’s annual summit on Capitol Hill in Washington, D. C. “Their direct actions include bombings, stalking of individuals and teaching members how to commit arson.”

“They attacked and destroyed a ski lift, an SUV dealership, and an apartment complex.” Four hundred tenants were evacuated from that complex.

Sen. Inhofe chairs the U. S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. In that capacity, he has discovered just how radical environmentalists can be.

“The killing of an animal and the killing of a human are morally equal,” Dr. Jerry Vlasak of Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) told Sen. Inhofe in a hearing. “At American University, he tried to show college students how to commit arson,” Sen. Inhofe remembers. Dr. Vlasak has called such acts “a morally justifiable solution to the problem” of alleged animal abuse.

He has also said, “A mouse is the moral equivalent of a child.”

Two other groups—the Animal Liberation Front and the Earth Liberation Front—are responsible for 1,200 acts of violence and $200 million in damages, Sen. Inhofe notes. He points out that they have attacked the labs at:

• The University of Iowa

• The University of Michigan

• Louisiana State University

• The University of Wisconsin

On the other hand, as noted earlier, universities can serve as a breeding ground for eco-terrorists as well, frequently sponsoring talks by the likes of Dr. Vlasak. “Yes, I believe they do enable the eco-terrorists,” Sen. Inhofe said. “At Oklahoma University people who advocate the overthrow of the government are brought in as speakers.”

And their nurturing stance towards such groups has a real world impact that goes even beyond the university labs such groups repeatedly target. “Employees of GlaxoSmithKline were stalked,” Sen. Inhofe recounts. “The New York Stock Exchange refused to list them because of terrorist threats.”

In his effort to bring such information front and center in congressional hearings, Sen. Inhofe can rarely count on bipartisan support. “Democratic Party funding comes from such groups,” Sen. Inhofe says. “The Democrats were funded by organized labor until about 15 years ago, then by the American Trial Lawyers Association, which conspicuously exempted itself from Campaign Finance Reform.”

“Now, far left environmental groups provide most of their funding.”

Sen. Infhofe’s committee oversees 17 bureaucracies. “It is poetic justice that I head this committee,” Sen. Inhofe told the Eagle Forum Collegians. “I spent 30 years in the private sector.”

“I built buildings,” he remembered. “My greatest obstacle was the federal government.”
“I tried to get a permit in Texas and had to go through 28 offices.”

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