Animals in Agriculture: The Course

Not so long ago, animal law classes were few and far between, and students who wished to see animal law taught at their school had to petition the dean, jump through a lot of hoops, fight off suggestions that they were just trying to promote their “crazy animal-rights agenda,” etc., etc., before they could get an animal law course taught at their school. Well, that was then and this is now, and currently, as many as 142 American law schools include animal law in their curriculum. (If you’re at a school that still doesn’t have one, you need to tell them to get with the program.)
Farmed Animal Courses
But, clearly, that’s only the beginning. There are now programs in animal law at progressive law schools, and Lewis & Clark has an entire Center for Animal Law Studies. And the next big thing in animal law looks like it will be courses in Animals in Agriculture. As far as I know, the first law school course in Animals in Agriculture was taught by Joyce Tischler as part of the Lewis & Clark Law School summer program, a terrific program that is run by the Center for Animal Law Studies and is open to students and practicing lawyers from all over the country who want to brush up on their animal law.
The ground having been broken, these courses are starting to sprout up everywhere. This fall, I will be lucky enough to succeed Joyce in teaching that course at Lewis & Clark. Also this fall, the amazing Cheryl Leahy, general counsel for Compassion Over Killing, will be teaching a course on animals in agriculture at UCLA Law School. And next semester, David Wolfson and I will be co-teaching a course at New York University School of Law.
There are good reasons that these courses are catching on. One is, naturally, that law students — like everyone else — are starting to wake up to the horrific cruelty of what is going on on factory farms, and they want to do something about it.
Career Options?
But there is more to it than that. Law students are, understandably, also worried about their own futures, and eager to find an area of expertise that will find them an income. Could animal law fit that bill?
Who knows? Animal agriculture is a crisis of monumental proportions that hardly anyone is thinking about in any kind of coherent way. When one, or more, of the many harms it causes to humans — whether it’s climate change, bird flu, antibiotic-resistant bacteria, drought, heart disease, you name it — gets so big that things actually start to fall apart, when people are actually forced to start to wake up to the need for drastic change, expertise will be needed to implement, via laws and regulations, the policy changes that are so desperately needed. All of that will require talented, trained lawyers.
And, in the mean time, there is much that can be done by lawyers to help people wake up sooner. When it comes to using the law to put an end to animal agriculture, there are so many ways for lawyers to go about it. In addition to the important work of trying to get our incredibly weak animal protection laws enforced, with all of the human harms that animal agriculture is causing — and with increasing scientific ability to understand the connections — it’s time somebody sued those who are causing all these harms. And with all these clever, young, passionate lawyers coming up, it looks like somebody is going to. Let’s hope they all get rich.
Photo at top of post courtesy of VINE Sanctuary.