UPF ACTIVIST KATIE PATTERSON APPEALS FOR INFO >>

Like all vivisection labs, the ARC has a history of secrecy and cover ups. In 2004, a long and drawn out legal battle for protocols of primate research made headlines in Salt Lake City. The public and the student body saw through the University's propaganda and argued that this information ought to be open to public scrutiny.

Recently, the University has been pursuing newer strategies to circumvent our public records requests. In November, UPF held a "public records request" party where activists met up, had a good time, made public records requests, and then followed it up with some good ol' fashioned home demos.

The University responded to almost all the requests demanding ridiculous exhorbitant fees. $50 for a census of animals. $150 for meeting minutes. $300 for daily care logs. $500 for correspondence from the ARC to government and accrediting agencies. The list goes on.

After much deliberation, we have chosen our test case that we plan to fight with. Once we are victorious with this case, we plan to use the precedent established to gain access to the other records we seek. Some of these records we've been fighting over for years and still have yet to see them. Now we're following through and we'll keep fighting the U until someone gets them in line.

Katie Patterson is a U of U student and dedicated UPF activist. In addition to filling her house and time with foster dogs, she campaigns against U of U primate vivisection and advocates for an end to vivisection. She requested a list of names of every employee of the animal lab - the University has denied her, and now she is appealing to the same State Records Committee we wound up three years ago.

The information she seeks is very controversial. But that's precisely because we live in a society that has become numb to the idea of personal responsibility. These individuals don't want to brand their name on the torture they case every day when they go to work. They're afraid that people may start saying "John Doe tortures animals" instead of the ambiguous and non-confrontational "University of Utah tortures animals." We seek to reverse this trend of deferring your moral responsibility on your occupation. That attitude has resulted in the greatest human evil, and we plan to continue our proud tradition of dropping names in our discussion of this torture.

Plus, we imagine the University won't like us contacting their staff to see if there are any compassionate individuals inside those lab walls who have stories to tell, now will they?

This is another stage in a multi-faceted animal liberation campaign. Whether we show up at their homes on Christmas, at work when they bring in shipments of animals, at their domestic violence trials, or bringing them to court; UPF will confront the vivisectors and their enablers anytime and anywhere. This campaign is here to stay until primate vivisection is no more in Utah.

Press Release (.pdf)

Katie's Appeal Letter (.pdf)