The Animal Liberation Front, one of the most serious domestic terror threats according to the FBI, has been wreaking havoc on universities for years, causing millions of dollars in property damage by raiding research laboratories, but now a professor of philosophy is accused of helping support their terrorism.
In August’s issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education, Scott Smallwood related the story of Steven Best, Department Chairman and an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Texas at El Paso, who is being accused of helping support eco-terrorism.
The article explained that the controversy ensued after Best co-founded the North American Animal Liberation Press Office last year, which “answers questions and helps disseminate information about actions by the Animal Liberation Front.”
It works like this: after an ALF attack on a fur farm, slaughterhouse or university laboratory, Best receives the message from someone in ALF and spreads the information through the Internet and by fax as well as fielding questions from reporters, Smallwood reported.
“I’m not in the ALF,” Best said. “If I were, I’d be wearing a mask, and you wouldn’t know who I was.”
“You’re either above ground or you’re underground, or you’re a moron looking to get caught.”
Last November, ALF members broke into the University of Iowa psychology department labs, took the mice and rats and caused $450,000 worth of damage. Later in the year, Best spoke at the University of Iowa, despite protests from psychology professors, wrote Smallwood.
David Martosko of the Center for Consumer Freedom, a Washington, D.C. group that fights against the work of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and activists like Best, said that Best is still responsible because he helps form an “above-ground support system for ALF.”
Martosko has accused Best of being a spokeperson for eco-terrorism and said that he should not be allowed to use his status as university professor to “indoctrinate his students and offer violent extremists a dash of intellectual legitimacy,” wrote Smallwood.
At a hearing of the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on animal- and eco-terrorism to which Best was invited but declined to speak, U. S. Senator James M. Inhofe, R-Okla., said that people cannot be allowed to “aid and abet criminal behavior” or support criminals after a crime has been committed.
“Just as we cannot allow…[them] to surf in between the laws of permissible free speech and speech that incites violence when we know the goal is to inspire people to commit crimes of violence,” concluded Inhofe.
Despite Best’s claims that he does not recruit for ALF or know “anyone in ALF,” he said that he is proud of some men who would be considered terrorists by others.
“They are heroes of mine,” Best said. “History will be written about them.”
Rodney Coronado, a well-known member of ALF who spent five years in prison for arson after an attack on a mink research lab at Michigan State University and now travels around the country speaking about animal rights, speaks well of his friend Best.
“Steve is true blue,” Coronado said, “[He’s not] chasing recognition and capitalizing on the latest social movement.”
Photographs of Best also show him with Kevin Kjonass, an animal-rights activist facing charges in New Jersey, and Gary Yourofsky, who has served time in prison.
Best’s own history as an activist has landed him in jail. In 1990, Best spent a day in jail after walking into a Wendy’s restaurant as part of a protest, jumping on the counter and shouting, “This store is closed for cruelty.”
Best calls all of his work philosophy in action, and it is his belief that the animal rights movement is the next abolitionist movement and its campaign a natural step in the evolution of man’s morality.
Since opening the press office and becoming a higher-profile defender of ALF, Best is no longer the chairman of the philosophy department. He said that his removal as chairman was an ambush and that it is because of his activism.
Colleagues responsible for removing Best from the position said that was not the case.
“We were extremely unsatisfied with his performance as chairman,” said John Symons, assistant professor. “From our perspective this has nothing to do with politics. It was a matter of running the practical affairs of the department.”
Symons also defended Best’s activism, saying that “Steve is a passionate defender of the Animal Liberal Front, but he is by no means a recruiter.”
Julia A. Seymour is a Campus Wire Writer.
