Is the Arc Still Bending Toward Justice?

Zoe Rosenberg, animal rescuer, was convicted on October 29 and faces up to 5 years in prison.

On Tuesday, October 28, a Wisconsin prosecutor announced that Ridglan Farms – the second largest beagle breeding and experimentation facility – would be shutting down. Many animal advocates wept in joy.

On Wednesday, October 29, a Sonoma court announced that Zoe Rosenberg had been convicted of one felony and three misdemeanors for saving four chickens from a slaughterhouse. Just as many animal advocates were crushed with despair.

I don’t know if there has been a greater sense of collective whiplash in animal rights history. We went from liberation to incarceration in the span of less than 24 hours.

Yet both of these cases are reflections of a deeper truth: the arc of the universe is long but it bends toward justice. Those words were spoken by Martin Luther King, Jr. in a speech at a dire moment in civil rights history: the march from Selma to Montgomery. Weeks earlier, Alabama state troopers had attacked 600 peaceful marchers, firing tear gas into a crowd and charging them on horseback. A young civil rights leader, John Lewis, suffered a skull fracture; another, Amelia Boynton, was beaten unconscious and had to be dragged to safety by her friends amid clouds of tear gas.

To many, the violence by the state against peaceful activists felt like a major setback. After all, just one year earlier, the federal government had passed the Civil Rights Act banning discrimination in public spaces. How could a movement go from historic victory to historic beating in less than a year? How long would people have to suffer repression before their most basic rights were protected? King provided the answer:

I come to say to you this afternoon, however difficult the moment, (Yes, sir) however frustrating the hour, it will not be long, (No sir) because “truth crushed to earth will rise again.” (Yes, sir)

How long? Not long, (Yes, sir) because “no lie can live forever.” (Yes, sir)

How long? Not long, (All right. How long) because “you shall reap what you sow.” (Yes, sir)

…

How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

What was true in 1965 is true today. Progression towards justice is steady, but it’s not a straight line. It bends one way, then it bends the other. That means many will not see the progression at all. But what King said in 1965 is that we have to take the long view. And in the long view, the arc bends toward justice.

“No lie can live forever.”

This is partly because “no lie can live forever.” This is borne out in the Ridglan case. Just a year ago, the industry was smearing me as a terrorist for rescuing a blind beagle puppy, and claiming that all the dogs at Ridglan were happy and healthy. But the strain of those falsehoods caused the system to break. Millions saw the photos and videos we shot inside Ridglan of puppies crying, injured, and trapped in cages. Public outcry rose to a fever pitch. On the day my trial was to start, the prosecution dismissed all charges against me. The government offered one last lie in court: “What has changed are the death threats and the coming after the business.” (The prosecutor provided no evidence of this and did not explain why death threats should lead to dismissal, rather than more vigorous prosecution.)

The same is true of Zoe’s case. The prosecution was able to deceive the jury by excluding key evidence, including a report by one of the government’s own veterinarians that animals at Petaluma Poultry were unable to stand, vocalizing in distress, and suffering from “necrotic” wounds that were so deep that there was “exposed muscle tissue and bone.” The prosecution was able to lie this time. But this is not the sort of detail that the government can cover up forever.

“You shall reap what you sow.”

The arc will bend toward justice, also, because “you shall reap what you sow.” The injustice inflicted on the Ridglan dogs was ultimately reflected back on the prosecutors who inflicted it; their reputations and careers are in tatters. Prosecutors Ismael Ozanne and Tim Gruenke both showed laughable bias towards the industry in their investigations of Ridglan Farms: Ozanne, by ignoring our allegations and charging us instead — all while stomping around in court with Ridglan’s attorneys by his side; Gruenke, by inventing forms of corporate immunity that simply do not exist and then pretending to be a defender of justice. (I’ll have much more to say about Gruenke’s prosecutorial misconduct in the days to come.)

But precisely because the actions of these prosecutors were so plainly unjust, their actions blew up in their face. Ozanne is widely mocked as an incompetent hack, even in his own county. Gruenke’s “report” on Ridglan Farms is so filled with errors about basic facts (e.g., the name of the judge who appointed him) and self-serving bias that it literally made me laugh out loud as I read it. We won despite him and not because of him.

The same will be true of Zoe’s prosecutors. One of the untold stories of the Sonoma trials has been the corrupt ties between the government and the industry. In an exchange that was recorded by a whistleblower, a Sonoma prosecutor visited a Farm Bureau event and promised to “cut the head off the snake” by targeting leadership in the animal rights movement. At the same event, prosecutors advised industry figures on how to lobby the legislature to allow for more aggressive punishment of activists. This was not just violent language but a violation of prosecutorial ethics. Prosecutors are bound to serve the public, and are not permitted to use the law to prosecute their political opponents.

This evidence of corruption was not allowed in court in my trial, or Zoe’s. Indeed, the prosecutor who made the “cut the head off” comment, Troye Shaffer, is now the Supervising Criminal Judge in the county. But in the long run, these actions will reap bad fruit for the officials involved. There is a brooding discontent among almost everyone I’ve spoken to involved in criminal justice in Sonoma County – defendants, defense lawyers, and even former prosecutors. One former prosecutor told me, “Everyone knows this is a sham.” Those who have built such a shoddy house will suffer the consequences of their craftsmanship.

“Truth crushed to earth will rise again.”

But the most important reason the arc bends toward justice is that “truth crushed to earth will rise again.” What King meant by this is that there is a long term steady state that our society moves toward – i.e., justice – even if there are temporary setbacks. The philosopher Joshua Cohen has made a similar observation in the history of ethics; the psychologist and polymath Steven Pinker has made that same observation in the history of suffering. It is hard, it turns out, to say “Torture for thee, but not for me” – or to defend systems that perpetuate that fallacy.

The Ridglan case is proof of that. For decades, we waited for the government to do something to help the dogs whose dead bodies were literally piling up in burning pyres. The wait was long, but justice won.

The same will be true of Zoe’s case. In the coming months, a Sonoma appellate court will rule on the question of whether animals are “someone” or “something,” as part of their review of my own conviction in Sonoma County. We have some of the most powerful legal thinkers in America today lined up in our support, including Harvard Law School’s Laurence Tribe and the University of Chicago’s Martha Nussbaum.

If we prevail, not only will Zoe’s conviction be vacated, but this truth, crushed to earth, will rise again: Animals are not things. They are sentient beings.

The Civil Rights activists understood the arc of the moral universe. John Lewis was nearly beaten to death in Selma, but the truth he fought for was eventually realized: Lewis was elected to Congress and is a legendary figure in the history of American justice.

The animal rights movement is beginning to understand this arc as well. Unlike prior instances of repression, the corruption in Ridglan in Sonoma are only leading to more energy for change among animal rights activists. Zoe’s sacrifice will someday soon be seen for what it is: the courage of a woman devoted to the idea of kindness.

So let’s celebrate the victory in Ridglan, and let’s grieve the conviction in California. But above all, let’s remember King’s words:

The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.