This post is written while America burns; not its cities or its businesses, but the fabric and principles of its founding – across the nation, and indeed across the world, protesters flood the streets and advocate online against police violence in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, all the while police fire on peaceful protesters, arrest journalists, and brutalize the American people. The commander-in-chief attempts to deploy the military and forcibly quarter those troops in American cities. The country is failing to live up to the promises of freedom and failing to achieve the dreams of a more perfect Union, where all people are not only created equal but receive equal treatment under the law.
Environmental and Animal Defense was founded because of the failures of our system to create equal justice. eaDefense, and so many others, seek to provide better access to justice for those who need it most. Our existence is inextricably linked and is the direct result of overcriminalization, over-policing, and unequal treatment of people of color in America. It is unfortunate that so many people need to constantly stand up for the oppressed in a nation whose fundamental promise is that of freedom, justice, and liberty for all. As long as our law enforcement officers do not have the same accountability as its citizens, as long as they are not held to the same standards as the people they detain, brutalize, and kill, this nation can never be free nor realize the promise of its founding.
As many Americans recognize, the issue of inequality has long pervaded the American justice system and regulatory system. For example, environmental law, aimed towards preventing pollution and preserving the natural environment, was once tainted with racist elements. The environmental justice movement was born alongside the civil rights movement in the 1960s when protesters rose up against the unequal pollution that communities of color were exposed to, which lasted for decades and still remains an issue to this day. Through criticism of the traditionally white, wealthy environmentalists of the era, communities of color demanded that the environmental movement do better and actively work against its own outcome of widening the gap between classes and races. While this movement lead to increased involvement and consideration of voices of color in the regulatory process, communities of color were found to be in even higher concentrations around hazardous waste facilities in the early 2000s than in the 1980s. We can do better.
The growing field of animal law faces similar barriers. The goals can vary between creating better animal protection or establishing the legal rights of animals but advancing the interests of animals in a system that oppresses them remains a common thread. We are thankful for decades of hard work by organizations that have come before us in advancing the interest of animals to prevent their pain and suffering, as well as seek justice when they have been harmed and even advance their rights as legal persons within the law.
However, the field of animal law is not immune to the widespread effects of disproportionate policing or racial application. Where nearly 2% of all adult males in America are incarcerated, African Americans are incarcerated at 6 times the rate of white men, and Latinos 2.5 times. In areas more heavily policed, people of color are bound to face more animal protection violations than whites. Where the workers of the animal agriculture industry are predominantly people of color, slaughterhouse investigations of abuse are bound to reveal higher incidents of abuse by people of color. These statistics do not just exist as the state of nature, but rather, reflect the places a predominantly white society with centuries of racial injustice has shoved its unwanted, but crucial, citizens. We have criticized the use of criminal law to protect animals for these very reasons.
We have specifically advocated for alternatives to protect animals outside of criminal enforcement, including mental health evaluations and education programs. We have also advocated that punitive justice approaches be replaced with alternatives that focus on restorative and rehabilitative principles. We further support the growing movement to defund police departments and to allocate resources devoted to over-policing and militarization of police departments to other programs and departments better able to use nonviolent methods to solve community issues, such as mental health crises, homelessness, and drug abuse. Calls to defund police are NOT calls to eliminate criminal enforcement, and we encourage Americans to push through the social exhaustion of the times to educate themselves on these important social and political issues. Additionally, we also support the call to end “qualified immunity” for law enforcement officers. This court-fabricated doctrine has no statutory basis and has expanded to protect police so aggressively that courts have the authority to dismiss cases before they determine if someone’s constitutional rights have been violated. It is a system that has incentivized brutal force and destroyed accountability of police officers. Ending “qualified immunity” would restore Americans’ ability to hold officers accountable for their actions that violate our constitutional rights. Finally, we support the call to defund District Attorney office budgets, which would force prioritization away from lower-level, nonviolent crimes and instead allow for attention to major and violent crimes that cause mental and physical trauma. For example, this shift prosecutorial attention to violent or widespread instances of animal abuse and cruelty rather zealously prosecuting every dog-at-large case against someone because they dropped their leash.
Animals themselves face similar divisions and inequitable treatment under the law. For example, pets are protected over animals consumed for food. Discrimination of different breeds within a single species are written into criminal law. Anti-cruelty laws, that exist in every state, exclude certain animals from protection based upon how humans use them. Those that are eaten are given one set of protections; those that are hunted for sport another; and those that are kept as pets yet another, and so on and so forth. Humans can leave millions of dollars in trusts for their animals to ensure they are cared for after the humans die; meanwhile, factory farms run rampant in delivering horrific deaths to the animals for consumption at Fourth of July barbeques. Dogs are treasured as family members but if you try to live in a city that bans pit bulls and you may as well find another place to live. Animal advocates have spent years fighting to change these inequalities and all change takes time. We can do better.
We should not aim to continue or repeat the mistakes of our predecessors. We live in a nation rife with inequality, among all species. We view the protection of animals and the movement for animal rights as a fundamental part of building a more just world. The many injustices of this nation require that we come together to fight back against this systemic inequality. It is impossible for one person, or one organization, to challenge and create change within every area of injustice – but together, each taking our own problem we wish to fix, we can continue to work towards a more perfect Union. Particularly, we urge animal law practitioners to examine their own racial biases they may have, whether they are conscious or subconscious, the policies they support that may contribute to overcriminalization disparate impacts, and to strive for a more diverse and well-represented client base.
As part of being a voice for change, the founders of Environmental and Animal Defense have contributed to the book, What Can Animal Law Learn from Environmental Law? 2d Ed. Our chapter, “Animal Socioequality: Lessons from the Impact of Environmental Justice on Environmental Law” examines these issues in greater detail and provides the field of animal law with suggestions on how to make the application and practice of animal law more equitable, both among the humans it impacts as well as the animals that these laws regulate. We receive absolutely NO income or royalties from purchases of this book, but only wish to direct interested readers that wish to know more about this subject to an appropriate resource to further educate themselves on how the field of animal law is trying to improve its awareness of racial injustices and inequities.
All humans have fundamental rights and all animals must be treated equitably and fairly. When the status of the socially lowest among us improves, it elevates all of society. To our allies taking to the streets in protest of the gross injustices within our nation, whatever they may be – we support you. We will continue creating change the best way we know how – from the municipal courts of Colorado, to hopefully one day, the Supreme Court of the United States, we will continue to work toward establishing socioequality among animals, and thus, humankind.
Written by Alexa Carreno, Co-Founder of Environmental and Animal Defense
Supported by Jeremy Mckay, Co-Founder of Environmental and Animal Defense