The absence of protesting members of Oberlin Animal Rights (OAR) from the hallways of Sperry Neuroscience this week does not mean they are now content with the ongoing laboratory procedures practiced by some neuroscience labs. For the past two weeks, the organization blocked hallways to protest vivisection, a laboratory procedure where live rats are used for experiments.
The group plans to protest the labs at least once a semester as long as they continue at Oberlin. Junior Aaron Simmons, a member of OAR, said that concrete dates for discussions between faculty and OAR have not been made but that they would be pursued early next semester.
"We find [the labs] objectionable because they use their living creatures as a scientific tool," Simmons said.
Visiting Professor of Neuroscience Albert Borroni, who teaches one of the Intro. to Neuroscience labs, said the protesters need to understand that some people disagree with their standpoint. He added that neuroscience students need to understand that some people strongly object to the laboratory practices they are performing.
Borroni said he believed that it was in the spirit of Oberlin for students to be active, and that activism should be directed at education rather than disruption of classes. The Neuroscience department has a duty to educate students in procedures for the outside world, Borroni said.
Simmons said that OAR favored complete abolition of the practice of vivisection, but that they would be willing to fight for any reduction in the number of rats that were used.
Simmons said there is "lots of room for smaller changes or compromises." He suggested that the neuroscience labs use rats only when original research was being done and not as procedural practice. These changes, he reminded, would be "not great, but better."
Borroni said he felt the protesters "made their point in a clear way that didn't disrupt what was going on in class."
Simmons said that he hoped the protests affected the thoughts of the campus in general concerning the labs, but first-year Randy Bartlett who was in the lab thought that the "only people who see them are in lab anyway." Had they protested elsewhere, he believed, their protests would have been more effective.
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