SGA Resolution on PETA Display

To the Editor,

I was appalled to read in Monday’s paper that SGA had passed a resolution condemning PETA and the student organization SETA for its “Animal Liberation” display on campus. I have been a vegetarian for nearly five years and I took place in the PETA demonstration and helped pass out literature about the realities of animal abuse and cruelty. I could not believe that SGA would seek to censure a registered VCU student organization which engaged in social activism designed to draw attention to a very real problem in our society: the exploitation and institutionalized abuse and oppression of non-human animals. Animal abuse and cruelty are serious problems in the United States and abroad, and this exhibit was designed to send the message that “oppression in any form is still oppression regardless of who is being oppressed and exploited.”

Most surprising of all were the quotes from SGA Senator Jithin Veer. Veer was a co-sponsor of the resolution condemning the display but it should be pointed out that his views on the issue were largely uninformed. Neither Veer nor anyone else quoted in the article bothered to even attend a publicized discussion held in the Commons on the second evening of the exhibit (the night before the counter-protests took place). In fact, none of the students who were involved in the counter-protests were attendance that evening. This was an event designed to explain the message behind the images used and to establish a dialogue with people on both sides of the issue. If Veer had taken it upon himself to attend this event he might have actually been able to understand why the images were used and what they were trying to convey. Instead, Veer assumed that the protests of some upset students who failed to grasp the meaning of the exhibit were the sum total of the student body’s reaction to the display. A take home point, Mr. Veer, “exploring only one side of an issue does not constitute developing an accurate assessment of how students feel about an issue.”

I whole-heartedly agree with Senate Chair Jessica Lee, who abstained from the vote. She notes that while many people may have been upset by the exhibit, condemning a student group for exercising its freedoms of speech and assembly is “insensitive.” Next time, Senators, try and get the whole story not just the convenient aspects.

Jeremy Kidd
Senior, Biology and Religious Studies Major
kiddj@vcu.edu