A February conference at Fresno State on revolutionary environmentalism, which drew passionate debate on and off campus, continues generating conflict as a point of interest in a federal grand jury investigation.
Officials at California State University, Fresno, and in the CSU general counsel's office in Long Beach confirm they received and acted on a grand jury subpoena. The university supplied a videotape of a conference session, which was open to the student body and media but closed to the general public.
The February conference brought together environmental advocates from a variety of groups across the country, some of which are known for militant tactics. Organizers called the conference an examination of those tactics. Critics reprimanded the university, saying the conference moved from analysis to advocacy of those tactics.
Federal authorities will not say what or whom they are investigating, but one conference participant who has heard about the inquiry calls it intimidation of animal rights militants. Another conference speaker said the grand jury's subpoena, which he had not heard about, is apparently part of a broad federal assault on civil rights and academic freedom.
In Long Beach, Janette Redd Williams, the CSU general counsel assigned to Fresno State, would not explain the subpoena. She said describing it involved "complicated issues we need time to research."
Fresno State President John Welty and Provost J. Michael Ortiz confirmed that the university had received the subpoena, but they limited their remarks.
"We always follow the law," Welty said of the university's compliance.
Welty said the university, in furnishing a videotape of a general session of the conference, would not tread on academic freedom as it would if it supplied material about classroom discussion or faculty debates.
Ortiz said he did not see the university's compliance with the subpoena as endangering academic freedom. If the material were used to curtail such open discussion in the future, that would compromise liberties on campus.
"That is a danger," he said.
Professor Mark Somma, who organized the conference, declined to comment.
Conference participants expressed outrage at the university's compliance with the subpoena, which they call a threat to academic freedom and their privacy.
Professor Steven Best, chairman of the philosophy department at the University of Texas, El Paso, participated as a moderator and animal rights advocate in separate sessions at the conference.
"I am shocked but not surprised at all," he said. "This is post-constitutional America. After 9/11 and the Patriot Act, we lost a lot of freedoms in this country, including very much the First Amendment right to free speech."
Best said the FBI has harassed animal rights groups and others since Sept. 11, 2001, considering them terrorists.
"The Animal Liberation Front doesn't pose a threat to national security," he said. "We are nonviolent, but we are equated with al-Qaida in the discourse of the right and by the ag industry and groups like the Center for Consumer Freedom."
Best said Fresno State had no right to consent to surveillance and intimidation of the conference.
"We weren't talking about hate or how to blow up anything. This was a discussion of the historical, political and ethical aspects of the animal and Earth liberation movements."
Rod Coronado of EarthFirst! had heard of the subpoena. He viewed the university's compliance as showing that academic freedom "doesn't even exist there, obviously."
"I think the Center for Consumer Freedom is in cahoots with the feds. The Center for Consumer Freedom was unable to get hold of the tapes. They probably called the FBI and said they were worth having.
"The tapes will show that the real eco-terrorism they should be investigating is by the timber companies, not people bombing buildings or other things they suspect. I do think it is shameful for any academic institution to cooperate in a political witch hunt."
The Center for Consumer Freedom represents food, restaurant and beverage interests, and rejected comments by Coronado and Best.
David Martosko, the center's research director, said from Washington that he hadn't heard about a grand jury investigation.
"But I know that certain activist groups have been complaining bitterly about grand jury subpoenas," he said. "I don't know if it relates to the Fresno event."
Martosko welcomed the federal inquiry, whatever its focus.
"I think it's about time," he said. "More power to them if they can bring some sense and some order to the chaos that violent radicals have brought on American businesses and on American college campuses."
Martosko said that "Americans and our government have a duty to question the activities of violent activists who want to force their choices on the rest of us by any means necessary."