The Rights of Students in Courses Using Animals

Should students have the right to exercise their ethical beliefs concerning animals by refusing to participate in class demonstrations or experiments that use animals? Should teachers be required to add an optional procedure for those students? In the past decade, two major trends in our society suggest that the answer to both questions is, or will ultimately be, yes. From amoral perspective the view that nonhuman animals are fellow creatures entitled to moral concern as such is replacing the traditional outlook that sees them as mere resources for us to use however we choose. This changing outlook reflects the intellectual adjustment that is taking place in the realm of ideas, in keeping with the Darwinian perception that animals are our evolutionary kin. Moral consideration is increasingly being extended to all living things, and students are asserting their right not to harm animals in the classroom. From a legal perspective, recent state and court actions have upheld the protection of students' right not to be forced to violate their ethical, spiritual, or religious beliefs in pursuit of their education, At the secondary level, the dissection of living animals was banned in Florida high schools, and students may be excused from dissecting a dead animal with a note from parents. In California, students in grades kindergarten through high school have won the right to refuse to dissect, kill, or otherwise harm animals and to substitute an alternative activity. The 1993 Edition of the California Education Code on Pupils' Rights to Refrain from the Harmful or Destructive Use ofAninwJs states that "If the pupil chooses to refrain from participation in an education project involving the harmful or destructive use of animals, and if the teacher believes that an adequate alternative education project is possible, then the teacher may work with the pupil to develop and agree upon an alternate education project for the purpose of providing the pupil an alternate avenue for obtaining the knowledge, information, or experience required by the course ofstudy in question." The Code stipulates that the alternate education project may not be covertly used to punish the pupil by being more arduous than the original, animal-based, one. In addition, the pupil may choose an alternative testing procedure for course credit if the standard test requires the harmful or destructive use of animals. In Maine, in 1989, the State Counselor ofEducation issued a Policy Advisory suggesting that students be informed that they may choose not to dissect but do an alternative project instead. Legislation pending in New Jersey, affecting high school students, provided a model