Barker has to bite his lip before giving NU $1 million
March 23, 2005
BY DAVE NEWBART Staff Reporter Advertisement
In making a $1 million gift to Northwestern to fund a course on animal rights, Bob Barker said he had to bite his lip and turn a blind eye to the animal research that goes on at the school.
But the star of "The Price is Right'' game show said establishing the Bob Barker Endowment Fund for the Study of Animal Rights Law is the best way to help boost the legal rights of animals for many years to come.
"I'm well aware of the cruelties and the mistreatment of animals in animal research,'' Barker said in a phone interview from Southern California Tuesday. "But many good things will come of this.''
Didn't know of criticism
Barker wasn't aware of Northwestern's ongoing troubles with federal agencies that have investigated the school's use of animals in lab experiments. But he said he picked Northwestern's School of Law -- along with four others he previously endowed -- because it was among the best in the country. Its students, he hopes, will go on to be lawyers, judges and even politicians who will write tougher laws.
"They would be in a position to do very good things,'' said Barker. "What we really need are more stringent laws protecting animals, and we need to have the laws in existence more efficiently enforced.''
Barker, an animal rights activist who has funded clinics nationwide to spay and neuter pets, said he wants to see penalties for punishing animals increased from misdemeanors to felonies in many cases.
Northwestern officials said the school will use the money to fund the creation of a course on such topics as species protection and international wildlife law. The school has a local chapter of the Animal Welfare League, indicating there is an interest in this emerging area of law, said university spokesman Charles Loebbaka.
