Bruce Friedrich, Vice President of PETA, has challenged collegiate debate teams at some of the country's most prestigious universities to defend the practice of eating animals. If he hasn't always won outright (they've only taken a post-debate vote "twice, and the vegetarian side received more votes both times" he says via email) his goal is to speak to students who "are open to making, and empowered to make, decisions that might have been more difficult earlier." Tomorrow night, he'll be clashing with NYU's Debate Team, an opportunity that was denied by a certain, drug-addled "Ivy."
Columbia University, who famously gave Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a forum, cancelled Friedrich's debate five hours before it was scheduled last month for what Friedrich calls a "7 year grudge" for prosthelytizing at the school's 2004 graduation ceremony. Though he hasn't received any word from their administration to reschedule the debate, he notes that the student body has been "unfailingly supportive." Given that NYU was ranked as one of the "top-5 vegan-friendly campuses," expect that same support tomorrow.
Friedrich concedes that while PETA may be more well-known for their stunts with naked women than their scholarly debate appearances, "we'd be failing in our mission if we neglected what is obviously true—that human beings are interested in celebrity and nudity…we have to do both." Polls have suggested that most people become vegetarian to better their health, not for their stance on animal rights, but Friedrich stresses that PETA's main mission is to convey that "other animals are more like us than they're unlike us." Mull that over before you don your cold-cut tube-top this weekend.
