University Heads Receive New "Animal Science" Letter in Time for Fall Semester
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vast majority from flesh, milk & eggs. Popular
consumer choices do not begin with consumers
but with industries, institutions and professions
that support the industries, and subtly powerful,
intricate dynamics, of public relations and
advertising.
So it isn't realistic to believe flesh, milk & egg
industry momentum - built over many decades
by thousands of skilled professionals, trillions
of dollars, desperately embraced popular mis-
conceptions, wishful thinking, and conspiracies
of silence - can be reversed in the foreseeable
future by a much smaller number of people
with rudimentary P.R. skills and comparably
minuscule budgets and claims to public trust
and favor. While animal advocates count on
their digits numbers of friends & relatives who
"go vegan," the increase in "meat eaters" each
year probably exceeds the total number of
humans on Earth at the time agriculture began.
That's because the human population
continues to grow; most newborns are not
vegan; and the flesh, milk & egg industries,
with their promotion apparatus, have
descended on large countries, where less
affluence used to dictate a nearly-all-plant
diet, to suck up as much as they can of
people's increasing affluence.
Among the mainstays of the inhumane flesh,
milk, egg & feed-crop industries, even inter-
nationally, are our land-grant universities’
"animal science" programs - training students
to work for, manage, and promote the flesh,
milk & egg industries; enabling instructors to
build salaried careers teaching students to
serve the industries and serving the industries
themselves through research and advice; and
giving the industries an academic stamp of
approval - though doing so contradicts humane
treatment of animals and expert warnings, some
from the very same LGUs, of harm to ecosystems
and human health & wellbeing from the flesh,
milk, egg & feed-crop industries.
"Animal science" is an untruthful name. Zoology
is the study of Earth’s million-plus animal species;
"animal science" teaches how to exploit a very
small number of species humans have enslaved
for thousands of years. Selectively applying the
scientific method to that task, it ignores science
and ideas that challenge the acceptability of the
task itself. "Animal science" violates our LGUs'
Congressional mandate to serve the public interest.
Accordingly, Responsible Policies for Animals
(RPA) in 2003 began its 10,000 Years Is Enough
campaign to educate people in positions to end
"animal science": LGU presidents and trustees; state
governors and legislators; government agriculture,
education, environment, and other committees;
news writers, editors & producers; LGU news-
paper personnel; and others.
The sixth letter RPA sent to the heads of the largest
LGUs in all 50 states - in recent days, as the fall
semester was about to begin - appears at the end
of this article. Past letters to the same 50 were
accompanied by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson’s ground-
breaking book The Pig Who Sang to the Moon: The
Emotional World of Farm Animals, factsheets designed
for the campaign, and text of the special webpage
linked to the ad RPA ran in The Chronicle of Higher
Education: www.ExpertsOfConscience.org.
RPA has received replies from 20 LGUs, some of
them multiple times. No one has been able to
refute any of RPA’s reasons for ending "animal
science" or any fact on which those reasons are
based. Details of the 10,000 Years Is Enough
campaign are available at www.RPAforAll.org.
RPA sent the letter that appears below to the
president of Cornell University, the only Ivy
League LGU. RPA recommends writing to him
if you live in New York State or have another
affiliation with Cornell and do not want tax &
tuition dollars used to bolster the inhumane flesh,
milk, egg & feed-crop industries. See
www.RPAforAll.org for the list of all 50 LGUs to
which RPA has now sent six informative mailings.
RPA also offers the free brochure Vegetarianism:
Why Plants-Only Eating Is Necessary and How
Political Vegetarianism Can Make It Happen. It
explains how political vegetarianism - organized
activity to end public institutions' support of
the flesh, milk & egg industries - might succeed
where ethical and health vegetarianism, popular
approaches of recent decades, cannot by
themselves bring the needed changes.
RPA's 6th mailing to all 50 states' largest land-grant
universities demanding an end to "animal science":
Responsible Policies for Animals, Inc.
P.O. Box 891, Glenside, PA 19038, USA
215-886-RPA1 - RPA...@aol.com
August 23, 2007
Dr. David J. Skorton
President
Day Hall #300
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853
Dear Dr. Skorton:
Responsible Policies for Animals’ (RPA’s) five
previous mailings to you and your predecessor
about the need to end Cornell University’s service
to the flesh, milk & egg industries documented
the industries’ enormous harm to human health
& quality of life, waste and contamination of
water & topsoil, nonhuman animals’ moral right
not to be used by human beings, and other public
interests. Also crucial to consider: harm to
instructors and students from “animal science.”
The industries use “animal science” instructors,
students & graduates as pawns for profit.
Cornell uses them for tuition and for industry,
government, and alumni support. It’s expected
that industry will exploit whom it can. It’s
shocking for an institution whose fundamental
responsibility is truth-seeking to turn its back on
the truth at instructors’ & students’ expense.
Most instructors & students probably want
their work and their university to serve the
public interest. Sadly, “animal science”
mocks that sincere desire, substituting
destructive popular interests: hamburgers,
cheese pizza, scrambled eggs, and the rest.
And endorsing flesh, milk & egg production
– contradicting established facts – puts
“animal science” instructors & students in
the position of deceiving rather than educating
or serving others.
When you think of “animal science,” think of
farmers in Tanzania attacking each other with
machetes. “Animal science” is a significant
cause of global climate change, which is melting
the snow atop Mt. Kilimanjaro. Farmers near
the mountain now fight over the reduced water
available for crops. Surely that is not the kind
of thing a Cornell University education should
foster? Unfortunately, that is just one of many
tragedies attributable in part to “animal science.”
The European Union will soon begin paying
owners to reduce the number of sheep and
other animals causing desertification and rapid
water loss. RPA and other organizations are
working hard for such constructive change.
Phasing out “animal science” is an important
opportunity for you to lead in the right direction
as a land-grant university (LGU) president – the
sooner, the better. Thank you for your
consideration, and I hope to receive your
reply soon.
Sincerely,
David Cantor
Executive Director
P.S. Having a graduate degree and extensive
teaching experience myself, I’m troubled by the
lack of intellectual integrity reflected in our
LGUs’ stonewalling this urgent & important
matter. Won’t you help move our LGUs and
our country in the right direction?
David Cantor is executive director of
Responsible Policies for Animals, Inc.
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