A judge has dismissed a lawsuit against Macalester College over its use of animals in psychology courses, although the alumnus who filed the case said Wednesday he plans to appeal the decision.

In a civil complaint filed June 3 in Hennepin County District Court, Dr. Neal Barnard said he relied on Macalester’s “false statements” over its animal testing in his decision to join the college’s Class of 1975 Planning Committee, as well as its Gift Subcommittee, and donate $100 to the St. Paul private school.

The complaint alleged one count each of fraudulent misrepresentation, false statement in advertisement and unlawful practices.

Barnard, a Maryland resident, sought, among other actions, an order compelling the St. Paul school “to cease its use of animal laboratories in psychology instruction and in all other areas for which non-animal methods are available.”

Macalester moved to dismiss Barnard’s claims, arguing that he knew about Macalester’s practices before making his donation.

“Unsatisfied with Macalester’s response to his demands that it change how it teaches psychology,” Macalester attorney Sean Somermeyer wrote in the June 26 motion memo, “(Barnard) set out to cook up a lawsuit by making a $100 donation — his first in 40 years — and claiming ‘fraud.’ ”

A hearing on the motion was held July 30 before Judge Karen Janisch, who ultimately agreed with Macalester and issued an order Tuesday dismissing the three counts.

“The court’s ruling affirms that external parties cannot interfere with or dictate curriculum,” Macalester President Suzanne Rivera said in a Wednesday statement issued by the college. “While people are entitled to personal opinions about animal use in science, the college is deeply committed to academic freedom. We respect the expertise of our faculty in what to teach and how to teach it.”

Barnard is a 1975 Macalester psychology graduate and medical doctor who founded the Washington, D.C.-based Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a group that advocates for alternatives to animal testing.

The nonprofit issued a statement Wednesday that said Barnard intends to appeal the judge’s decision.

“Medical schools dropped animal labs from their curricula years ago,” the statement quoted Barnard as saying. “Mac should, too.”

‘Make a Gift’

According to the facts of the case outlined in the judge’s order:

Macalester reached out to Barnard and other 1975 graduates in 2023 about a 50th class reunion, asking for donations for activities and whether they were interested in planning them.

Related Articles

New Trump administration rule bars student loan relief for public workers tied to ‘illegal’ activity

Dakota County elections: Three districts with school boards on the ballot

St. Paul Public Schools using taxpayer funds on special levy. But is it advocacy?

Carnegie libraries, including three in the east metro, will each get $10,000

Voters to decide school levy referendums in Ramsey, Dakota, Washington counties

Before his donation, Barnard reviewed Macalester’s website, which stated 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 same webpage included a “Make a Gift” link for making charitable donations.

Before making a donation, Barnard contacted Macalester psychology department head Janie Strauss to discuss the college’s current practices.

The two met in person on May 9, 2024, and Strauss, in response to a question from Barnard, informed him that Macalester continued to use “Skinner-inspired animal laboratories” as part of its introductory psychology courses, the judge’s order read.

In the 1920s, psychologist B.F. Skinner invented what would become known as “Skinner boxes,” which often involve starving rats or pigeons to motivate them.

Barnard told Strauss that he believed such practices are prohibited under ethical principles regarding the use of animals in science, called the “Three Rs” — for replacement, reduction and refinement.

“The Three R’s have been enshrined in some federal laws and as part of the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals, a standard text in the field,” the judge’s order read.

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, the complaint said.

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, according to the complaint.

Barnard met with Macalester President Suzanne Rivera and Macalester Vice Provost Paul Overvoorde on Nov. 6 to discuss his concerns. The next day, Barnard participated in person in another Gift Subcommittee meeting and afterward donated $100 to the school.

Barnard emailed Overvoorde on Nov. 15 about the college’s Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, which oversees all scientific uses of animals by the college. Rivera then emailed Barnard on Dec. 2, instructing him to direct all future communications on animal use matters to Macalester’s legal counsel.

Judge’s conclusions

Janisch noted in the dismissal order that the only statement the college made to Barnard after the Nov. 6 meeting and his donation the next day was Rivera telling him over the phone that she would “forward [his] concerns to appropriate people.”

Janisch cited 2009 state case law, Valspar Refinish Inc. v. Gaylord Inc., that states: “When a party conducts an independent factual investigation before it enters into a commercial transaction, that party cannot later claim that it reasonably relied on the alleged misrepresentation.”

As in Valspar, Janisch concluded, Barnard’s “actual knowledge of Macalester’s practices after investigating the college’s claims, preclude him from establishing he reasonably relied on the content of (the) website statement when making his donation.”

Macalester made no separate promise to Barnard to change any practice, Janisch wrote, and therefore he “cannot, as a matter of law, establish a valid claim for fraudulent or negligent misrepresentation consistent with the facts pleaded in the complaint.”

Related Articles

Self-described ‘right wing libertarian’ vandalized Pride flags, anti-Trump signs in St. Paul, charges say

St. Paul man, 65, sentenced for fatally stabbing apartment neighbor, 70, in fight over money

Feds: St. Paul man put $45K hit on Pam Bondi in TikTok post

St. Paul man sentenced for park robbery, downtown shooting that wounded 3

Jonathan Weinhagen resigns from Mounds View school board amid federal fraud allegations

Barnard asserted that he had standing to bring a consumer fraud act violation claim based on the solicitation for donations and his eventual donation. He maintained that his injury and his standing are predicated on his website donation.

Janisch noted the Minnesota Consumer Fraud Act allows private civil action by a consumer who claims injury by a violation in connection with a sale of merchandise for personal, family, household or agricultural purposes.

Janisch concluded that Barnard’s knowledge of the use of animals in classroom settings before donating preclude him “from establishing that he suffered an injury caused by the alleged false statement on Macalester’s website.”

By ALEX VEIGA, AP Business Writer

The average rate on a 30-year U.S. mortgage fell for the fourth week in a row to its lowest level in more than a year.

Lower mortgage rates boost homebuyers’ purchasing power. They also benefit homeowners eager to refinance their current home loan to a more attractive rate.

The average long-term mortgage rate dropped to 6.17% from 6.19% last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday. A year ago, the rate averaged 6.72%.

The last time the average rate was lower was on Oct. 3, 2024, when it was 6.12%.

Borrowing costs on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages, popular with homeowners refinancing their home loans, also eased this week. The average rate dropped to 5.41% from 5.44% last week. A year ago, it was 5.99%, Freddie Mac said.

Mortgage rates are influenced by several factors, from the Federal Reserve’s interest rate policy decisions to bond market investors’ expectations for the economy and inflation. They generally follow the trajectory of the 10-year Treasury yield, which lenders use as a guide to pricing home loans.

Related Articles

Banks and retailers run short on pennies as the US Mint stops making them

Obesity, diabetes treatments fuel Eli Lilly growth and spark bidding war

China says it will work with US to resolve issues related to TikTok

US stocks are mixed as Wall Street sees both good and bad in Big Tech profits, US-China relations

Why your financial planner might tell you to keep the mortgage

By KEN SWEET, AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — The United States is running out of pennies.

President Donald Trump’s decision to stop producing the penny earlier this year is starting to have real implications for the nation’s commerce. Merchants in multiple regions of the country have run out of pennies and are unable to produce exact change. Meanwhile, banks are unable to order fresh pennies and are rationing pennies for their customers.

One convenience store chain, Sheetz, got so desperate for pennies that it briefly ran a promotion offering a free soda to customers who bring in 100 pennies. Another retailer says the lack of pennies will end up costing it millions this year, because of the need to round down to avoid lawsuits.

“It’s a chunk of change,” said Dylan Jeon, senior director of government relations with the National Retail Federation.

The penny problem started in late summer and is only getting worse as the country heads into the holiday shopping season.

To be sure, not one retailer or bank has called for the penny to stick around. Pennies, especially in bulk, are heavy and are more often than not used exclusively to give customers change. But the abrupt decision to get rid of the penny has come with no guidance from the federal government. Many stores have been left pleading for Americans to pay in exact change.

“We have been advocating abolition of the penny for 30 years. But this is not the way we wanted it to go,” said Jeff Lenard with the National Association of Convenience Stores.

Trump announced on Feb. 9 that the U.S. would no longer mint pennies, citing the high costs. Both the penny and the nickel have been more expensive to produce than they are worth for several years, despite efforts by the U.S. Mint to reduce costs. The Mint spent 3.7 cents to make a penny in 2024, according to its most recent annual report, and it spends 13.8 cents to make a nickel.

“Let’s rip the waste out of our great nation’s budget, even if it’s a penny at a time,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

The Treasury Department said in May that it was placing its last order of copper-zinc planchets — the blank metal disks that are minted into coins. In June, the last pennies were minted and by August, those pennies were distributed to banks and armored vehicle service companies.

Related Articles

Obesity, diabetes treatments fuel Eli Lilly growth and spark bidding war

China says it will work with US to resolve issues related to TikTok

US stocks are mixed as Wall Street sees both good and bad in Big Tech profits, US-China relations

Why your financial planner might tell you to keep the mortgage

China agrees to purchase 25 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans annually, treasury secretary says

Troy Richards, president and chief operations officer at Louisiana-based Guaranty Bank & Trust Co., said he’s had to scramble to have enough pennies on hand for his customers since August.

“We got an email announcement from the Federal Reserve that penny shipments would be curtailed. Little did we know that those shipments were already over for us,” Richards said.

Richards said the $1,800 in pennies the bank had were gone in two weeks. His branches are keeping small amounts of pennies for customers who need to cash checks, but that’s it.

The U.S. Mint issued 3.23 billion pennies in 2024, the last full year of production, more than double that of the second-most minted coin in the country: the quarter. But the problem with pennies is they are issued, given as change, and rarely recirculated back into the economy. Americans store their pennies in jars or use them for decoration. This requires the Mint to produce significant sums of pennies each year.

The government is expected to save $56 million by not minting pennies, according to the Treasury Department. Despite losing money on the penny, the Mint is profitable for the U.S. government through its production of other circulating coins as well as coin proof and commemorative sets that appeal to numismatic collectors.

In 2024, the Mint made $182 million in seigniorage, which is its equivalent of profit.

Besides American’s penny hoarding habit, a logistical issue is also preventing pennies from circulating.

The distribution of coins is handled by the Federal Reserve system. Several companies, mostly armored carrier companies, operate coin terminals where banks can withdraw and deposit coins. Roughly a third of these 170 coin terminals are now closed to both penny deposits as well as penny withdrawals.

Bank lobbyists say these terminals being closed to penny deposits is exacerbating the penny shortage, because parts of the country that may have some surplus pennies are unable to get those pennies to parts of country with shortages.

“As a result of the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s decision to end production of the penny, coin distribution locations accepting penny deposits and fulfilling orders will vary over time as (penny) inventory is depleted” a Federal Reserve spokeswoman said.

The lack of pennies has also become a legal minefield for stores and retailers. In some states and cities, it is illegal to round up a transaction to the nearest nickel or dime because doing so would run afoul of laws that are supposed to place cash customers and debit and credit card customers on an equal playing field when it comes to item costs.

So, to avoid lawsuits, retailers are rounding down. While two or three cents may not seem like much, that extra change can add up over tens of thousands of transactions. A spokesman for Kwik Trip, the Midwest convenience store chain, says it has been rounding down every cash transaction to the nearest nickel. That’s expected to cost the company roughly $3 million this year. Some retailers are asking customers to give their change to local or affiliated charities at the cash register, in an effort to avoid pennies as well.

A bill currently pending in Congress, known as the Common Cents Act, calls for cash transactions to be rounded to the nearest nickel, up or down. While the proposal is palatable to businesses, rounding up could be costly for consumers.

The Treasury Department did not respond to a request for comment on whether they had any guidance for retailers or banks regarding the penny shortage, or the issues regarding penny circulation.

The United States is not the first country to transition away from small denomination coins or discontinue out-of-date coins. But in all of these cases, governments wound down the use of their out-of-date coins over a period of, often, years.

For example, Canada announced it would eliminate its one-cent coin in 2012, transitioning away from one-cent cash transactions starting in 2013 and is still redeeming and recycling one-cent coins a decade later. The “decimalization” process of converting British coins from farthings and shillings to a 100-pence-to-a-pound system took much of the 1960s and early 1970s.

The U.S. removed the penny from commerce abruptly, without any action by Congress or any regulatory guidance for banks, retailers or states. The retail and banking industries, rarely allies in Washington on policy matters related to point-of-sale, are demanding that Washington issue guidance or pass a law fixing the issues that are arising due to the shortage.

“We don’t want the penny back. We just want some sort of clarity from the federal government on what to do, as this issue is only going to get worse,” the NACS’ Lenard said.

By COLLIN BINKLEY, AP Education Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is forging ahead with plans to eject some nonprofits from a popular student loan forgiveness program if their work is deemed to have a “substantial illegal purpose” — a move that could cut off some teachers, doctors and other public workers from federal loan cancellation.

New rules finalized Thursday give the Education Department expanded power to ban organizations from the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. The Trump administration said it’s necessary to block taxpayer money from lawbreakers. Critics say it turns the program into a tool of political retribution.

Set to take effect in July, the policy is aimed primarily at organizations that work with immigrants and transgender youth.

It grants the education secretary power to exclude groups from the program if they engage in activities including the trafficking or “chemical castration” of children, illegal immigration and supporting terrorist organizations. “Chemical castration” is defined as using hormone therapy or drugs that delay puberty — gender-affirming care common for transgender children or teens.

It amounts to a major reworking of a program that has canceled loans for more than 1 million Americans and was created by Congress in 2007 to steer more college graduates into lower-paying public sector jobs. The Trump administration has yet to identify specific groups it intends to target, but it estimates fewer than 10 would be barred per year.

The program “was meant to support Americans who dedicate their careers to public service – not to subsidize organizations that violate the law, whether by harboring illegal immigrants or performing prohibited medical procedures that attempt to transition children away from their biological sex,” Education Undersecretary Nicholas Kent said in a statement.

The legal nonprofit Student Defense said it will sue to challenge the rules, arguing the administration is illegally “punishing public servants for their employers’ perceived political views.”

The program has rewarded a wide range of public service careers

The program promises to cancel federal student loans for government employees and many nonprofit workers after they have made 10 years of payments. It has long been open to government workers, teachers, firefighters and employees of public hospitals. Eligibility rules laid out by Congress focus mostly on nonprofits’ tax status and their field of work.

The benefit has gone to workers at organizations across the political spectrum. Yet in a March action demanding new limits, President Donald Trump said it has “misdirected tax dollars into activist organizations that not only fail to serve the public interest, but actually harm our national security and American values, sometimes through criminal means.”

A central concern of critics is the wide latitude the department is giving itself to determine if an organization’s work should be considered to have a “substantial illegal purpose.”

Employers across state and local government as well as nonprofits can be expelled from the program if a state or federal court rules against them, or if they agree to a legal settlement that includes admission of guilt. Performing gender-affirming care in the 27 states that outlaw it, for example, appears to be grounds for expulsion.

Even without a legal finding, the education secretary will be able to independently determine that an organization should be barred. The secretary would weigh whether the “preponderance of the evidence” leans against the employer.

The department dismissed concerns from many who said that bar is too low.

“It ensures decisions are grounded in fact, not speculation, and allows the Department to act promptly to protect both borrowers and taxpayers,” federal officials wrote.

Critics see an opening for decisions based on ideology

Among those opposing the proposal were prominent associations in higher education, health care and legal professions. In public comments submitted to the department, many called it an illegal overstep and said it would undermine an incentive that has helped address work shortages in high-demand fields.

The American Bar Association said it could decrease the ranks of public defenders and those in public interest law. Thousands of people will lose access to representation, the association said, “simply because those attorneys’ jobs were deemed politically unfavorable by the Secretary.”

The National Council of Nonprofits said the policy would allow future administrations from any political party to change eligibility rules “based on their own priorities or ideology.”

Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Mich., chair of the House Education and Workforce Committee, said the overhaul will prevent taxpayers from covering loan relief for employees at “radical organizations that violate state and federal laws.”

Related Articles

Dakota County elections: Three districts with school boards on the ballot

St. Paul Public Schools using taxpayer funds on special levy. But is it advocacy?

Carnegie libraries, including three in the east metro, will each get $10,000

Voters to decide school levy referendums in Ramsey, Dakota, Washington counties

Jonathan Weinhagen resigns from Mounds View school board amid federal fraud allegations

Under the new rules, employers can only be sanctioned for activities that take place on or after July 1, 2026. Those barred from the program can reapply for eligibility after 10 years or rejoin sooner if they follow a “corrective action plan” approved by the secretary.

Documents from the department indicate that a single violation of the law may or may not be enough to get an employer barred, depending on the circumstances. Not all organizations that break the law have a “substantial illegal purpose,” the agency said, and it ultimately comes down to the secretary’s analysis of the evidence.

The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.