A lawsuit accuses Macalester College of violating state consumer fraud laws “by advertising itself as a model of compliance” with ethical animal research guidelines, while killing small animals in “outdated” psychology courses.
The civil complaint was filed Tuesday in Hennepin County District Court by Dr. Neal Barnard, a 1975 Macalester psychology graduate and medical doctor who founded the Washington D.C.-based Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a nonprofit group that advocates for alternatives to animal testing.
Barnard, while preparing to celebrate his 50th college reunion, discovered the school “continues to kill large numbers of animals every year in mechanical devices designed more than 100 years ago,” the nonprofit group says in a Tuesday news release.
A billboard campaign against its practices is also planned for St. Paul. A spokesman for the group said one will go up this week near Snelling and Selby avenues that reads, “Macalester Psychology Education: Outdated, unethical” and shows a rat in a Skinner box. A second one is planned for next week three blocks south.
Macalester has not immediately responded to a request for comment Tuesday.
Macalester psychology courses use small metal “Skinner boxes,” invented by psychologist B.F. Skinner in the 1920s, to force the animals deprived of food or water for long periods to perform a variety of acts to get the food or water they need to survive, the complaint says. Afterward, the animals are killed.
“As a psychology major in 1972, I participated in those old-fashioned exercises,” Barnard says in the release. “At the end of each laboratory series, the animals were tossed into a trash can, chloroform was poured over them, and the lid was closed.”
Investigating behavior and brain function have evolved dramatically since then and teaching methods, including computer models and hands-on classroom exercises with human participants, have largely replaced the use of animals in psychology education, the complaint says.
“On information and belief, Macalester continues to use and kill small, vulnerable animals in psychology laboratory exercises whose objectives can easily be met without animals,” the complaint states.
The lawsuit alleges one count each of fraudulent misrepresentation, false statement in advertisement and unlawful practices. It seeks, among other actions, an order compelling Macalester “to cease its use of animal laboratories in psychology instruction and in all other areas for which non-animal methods are available.”
Meetings went nowhere
According to the complaint, Macalester reached out to Barnard and other Class of 1975 graduates two years ago about a 50th college reunion, asking for donations for activities and whether they were interested in planning them.
Barnard went to Macalester’s website on 50th reunions, then found the school’s page on research policies and procedures. It lists the college’s Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, which “acts to review and ensure that animal welfare standards and ethical principles are applied at the highest possible level in any animal use or research conducted at or in association with the college.”
The webpage, which includes two links for charitable donations to Macalester and one for prospective students to apply to the college, says the committee derives its authority from the law, mandated by the Health Research Extension Act of 1985 and the Animal Welfare Act.
Barnard contacted Macalester psychology department chair Jaine Strauss to request an in-person meeting to find out whether the school uses live animals and “Skinner boxes” in its psychology courses.
Barnard, who lives in Maryland, met Strauss in Minnesota in May 2024. In response to Barnard’s questions, Strauss confirmed the department continues its Skinner-inspired animal laboratories as part of the introductory psychology course and other courses, the complaint alleges.
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Barnard “shared his view” to Strauss that the “Three Rs” prohibit such activities. The complaint says accepted ethical principles regarding the use of animals in science, called the “Three Rs” — for replacement, reduction and refinement — have been incorporated into regulations that implement the federal Animal Welfare Act, as well as the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals, adherence to which is mandatory for activities covered by the federal Health Research Extension Act.
Strauss told Barnard that Macalester’s IACUC, which oversees all scientific uses of animals by the college, is “very careful” in its work, the complaint says.
Barnard sent a follow-up email to Strauss that month outlining his concerns, expecting she would take them to the committee “and, in compliance with the Three Rs, replace the use of animals with other methods of study,” the complaint says.
Barnard, believing the college was open to reform, then accepted an invitation to join Macalester’s Class of 1975 Planning Committee and serve on its Gift Subcommittee. In his role from July 30 through Nov. 1, Barnard made phone calls, sent emails and mailed postal letters to fellow Macalester alumni assigned to him by Macalester’s fundraising staff to solicit charitable donations.
Meanwhile, Barnard did not receive any email or written response from Strauss as to any decision regarding replacing the use of animals as required by the Three Rs, the complaint says.
Barnard met with Macalester president Suzanne Rivera and Macalester vice provost Paul Overvoorde on Nov. 6 to discuss his concerns. The next day Barnard and Rivera spoke briefly in person, with Rivera stating she had forwarded his concerns to appropriate people. Later that same day, Barnard participated in person in another gift subcommittee meeting and afterward donated $100 to the school.
Rivera emailed Barnard on Dec. 2, instructing him to direct all future communications on animal use matters to Macalester’s legal counsel.
Barnard relied on Macalester’s “false statements” in joining the school’s Class of 1975 Planning Committee, as well as its Gift Subcommittee, and donating to the school.
The publication of Barnard’s name on Macalester’s website, “while (the school) refuses to apply the Three Rs ethical principles to its animal use program, harms the reputation of “Barnard), who has worked for decades to end the use of animals in such settings,” the complaint continues.
According to the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, Barnard previously worked on a child psychiatry ward at Fairview Hospital in Minneapolis; completed medical school and psychiatry residency at the George Washington University in Washington D.C.; presided over an outpatient psychiatric clinic at the George Washington University; and maintained a private practice in psychiatry, among other achievements.
‘Major victories’
The group, which Barnard founded in 1985 and has 17,000 doctor members, boasts online of its “major victories” over the past two decades, including all medical schools in the U.S. and Canada stopping the use of live animals to train medical students, and the National Institutes of Health stopping its experiments on chimpanzees.
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In 2019, the group filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Agriculture against Mayo Clinic alleging it was violating the federal Animal Welfare Act by using pigs in once-a-year emergency medical training. Mayo Clinic later confirmed that it had changed its policy.
Earlier that year, Hennepin Healthcare ended the use of live animals for teaching emergency medicine residents, according to the nonprofit. Previously, Hennepin Healthcare used up to 150 sheep and 150 rabbits each year to teach invasive procedures like drilling a hole into an animal’s skull and opening the chest cavity to access the heart.
Last month, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced it was phasing out animal testing in the development of monoclonal antibody therapies and other drugs with “more effective, human-relevant methods.”
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