PETA VP Barred From Columbia, Welcomed at U-M

PETA Vice President Bruce Friedrich frequently visits colleges across the country and participates in debates about the ethics of eating meat. His debates are usually very popular and well-attended. But recently, Columbia University canceled Bruce’s scheduled debate just hours before it was supposed to take place. Why? Because seven years earlier, Bruce interrupted a speech at the school’s commencement ceremony to speak out about cruel experiments on animals being conducted in Columbia’s laboratories. Guess they didn’t want that info to get out. Bear in mind that this is the same school that welcomed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with open arms. Wow.

Today, Bruce participated in a similar debate at the University of Michigan (U-M)—despite the fact that just last week, a PETA member attended the school’s conference on survival flight training, calmly took the microphone during a speech, told the audience about the school’s use of animals in cruel and archaic training methods, and requested that the school use modern simulators instead.

Hmmm … looks like U-M is a little more open-minded than Columbia. Here’s hoping that U-M extends that open-mindedness to exploring more humane training methods.

Written by Michelle Sherrow