EDITORS' CORNER
‘Transforms an ordinary trip to the dining hall into an opportunity for reflection’
A private Southern California college, in collaboration with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, has installed a plaque to honor animals eaten in its dining hall.
“What if you were asked to remember the living individuals behind every meal? That’s the question at the heart of Pitzer College’s historic new memorial plaque, which honors the millions of cows, pigs, chickens, and other animals who have been killed and served as food on campus,” states a news release from PETA.
The plaque was installed earlier this month and is billed by the activism group as the first of its kind.
“Pitzer’s memorial is historic, but we hope it’s only the beginning. Animal advocates are already pushing for a similar plaque at Wesleyan University, with the goal of bringing the same conversation about empathy, accountability, and animals’ lives to campuses across the country,” the release states.
The plaque, which has a picture of a mother cow and her calf, reads:
In Recognition and Memory
On this site, over many years, the bodies of countless chickens, cows, fish, pigs, turkeys, and other animals have been served as food. This plaque is a memorial to all those individuals whose lives were spent in confinement, who endured abuse and exploitation, and who experienced the fearful trip to their slaughter—a journey that ended with the consumption of their flesh in this dining hall. This plaque seeks to honor their lives and to inspire us all to reject a worldview in which injustice, prejudice, and violence lead humans to believe that other animals’ bodies can be used for food.
There will come a time when we will look back on this treatment of our fellow animals as indefensible. We will recognize that all animals feel, think, love, and strive to live—even those who do not look or behave exactly as humans do—and that their lives are as precious to them as ours are to us.
—A Coalition of Students, Alumni, and Faculty for Compassionate Dining
The memorial, backed by civil rights activist and vegan Angela Davis, “transforms an ordinary trip to the dining hall into an opportunity for reflection, inviting passersby to pause and think about the animals whose lives mattered,” the news release states.
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