Aryenish Birdie Discusses Anti-Racism in Animal Advocacy
On Oct. 14, the Law, Ethics & Animals Program (LEAP) hosted Aryenish Birdie, Founder and Executive Director of the nonprofit organization Encompass, for a discussion on inclusion and diversity in the animal rights movement.
The event — co-sponsored by the Yale Sustainable Food Program, the Yale Animal Law Society, and the Yale Environmental Law Association — was a part of the 2021-22 LEAP speaker series. LEAP Faculty Co-Director Jonathan Lovvorn moderated the talk.
Birdie has advocated for animal protection for more than 20 years, working on issues ranging from circus abuses to animal experimentation. Through her early activism, Birdie became increasingly concerned about the lack of racial diversity and understanding of racism within the animal protection movement. In response to these issues, she established Encompass, a nonprofit that aims to make the animal advocacy movement more diverse, equitable, and inclusive.
In 2021, Birdie and colleagues published Antiracism in Animal Advocacy: Igniting Cultural Transformation, a collection of essays by 16 farmed animal protection advocates committed to improving racial equity in the animal advocacy movement.
Founded in 2019, the Law, Ethics & Animals Program at Yale Law School is a multidisciplinary program dedicated to developing strategies to address industrialized animal cruelty and its impacts on the living world, and to drawing attention to the deep questions of conscience and law raised by humanity’s treatment of animals.
By Christopher Sung
