SAN FRANCISCO—Animal rights and environmental groups have targeted several proposed research facilities here in what univer- sity officials see as a serious threat to basic research and academic freedom on their campuses.
Although there is a nationwide pattern of activity by various groups (see related story on p. 5), the Bay area has emerged as a major hot spot. At present Stanford University, University of California-Berkeley and UC-San Francisco are all fighting for permission to expand campus research facilities.
“It seems that there is a kind of fusion going on among the various types of groups out there,” said Larry Horton, associate vice president of public affairs at Stanford, about the opposition. “They are getting very sophisticated and successful.”
Two proposed projects at Stanford are the focus of the most recent Bay area opposition. The first is an $18 million animal research facility (called Research Animal Facility II) that was...