Thanks to a generous gift from the American Society for the Prevention for Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), Vermont Law School’s (VLS) Animal Law and Policy Institute is thrilled to welcome its second 2022 Animal Law Media Fellow, Melanie D.G. Kaplan, to campus.

An independent journalist based in Washington, DC, Ms. Kaplan is a regular contributor to the Washington Post and has published extensively elsewhere, including in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today. She will spend two weeks at VLS participating in the Environmental Law Center’s renowned summer session, including auditing Animal Welfare Law with Professor Delcianna Winders. This unique summer course—one of five intensive animal law and policy classes VLS offers this summer—guides students through the broad and rapidly evolving scientific and legal developments pertaining to the welfare of animals used for profit.

VLS’s media fellowships are intended to help journalists deepen their understanding of law and policy, and this coursework will inform Ms. Kaplan’s current work on a book on animal experimentation—a project inspired by her beagle Hammy, who spent four years in a laboratory before she adopted him. 

Professor Winders, director of VLS’s Animal Law and Policy Institute, says, “There couldn’t be a better time for Melanie Kaplan to join us at VLS. Our animal law and policy programming is burgeoning, and the federal government recently took unprecedented legal action against an abusive supplier of beagles for the animal experimentation industry—a case that we will be discussing in class, with the benefit of Ms. Kaplan’s—and her rescued beagle Hammy’s—perspectives. Our animal law media fellowships are a win for everyone—the journalists we host and teach; the students, faculty, and staff who learn from our fellows’ expertise; and the animals who benefit from their cutting-edge and in-depth reporting.”

While also enjoying farmers markets, festivals, and the beauty of summer in Vermont, on Tuesday, June 28, at noon Eastern Daylight time, Ms. Kaplan will present as part of VLS’s Hot Topics in Environmental Law lecture series. Her talk, About a Beagle: How My Hound Bred for Science Led Me to the World of Animal Research, Testing, and Education, can be livestreamed at vermontlaw.edu/live, YouTube, and Facebook.