I recently saw a comment expressing cynicism about the future of our justice system. “Just wait until millennials are judges,” the comment roughly went — the implication being that some in the “woke” generation will put social ideology ahead of fairness, impartiality and common law.

Indeed, literal kangaroo courts may not be far off.

Harvard Law School announced this month that it had established a $10 million endowment for its animal law program. Harvard’s program has featured radicals from the Humane Society of the United States, Animal Legal Defense Fund and PETA — some of whom have gone on to start programs at Yale and Vermont.

It’s spreading like a plague. Twenty years ago, only nine schools offered a course in animal law. When “Price is Right” host Bob Barker donated $1 million to the University of Virginia in 2009 to establish an animal law program, it was big news.

Today you can find animal law programs at the vast majority of law schools, along with an Animal Legal Defense Fund student chapter.

These law schools serve as training grounds for the next generation of animal liberation activists. As noted by Harvard, “Many HLS students additionally have embarked on careers in animal protection after graduation, working with organizations that include Animal Outlook, the Animal Legal Defense Fund, Food Solutions Action, the Good Food Institute, the Humane League, the Humane Society of the United States, and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.”

Established animal rights groups have endowments and mega-donors to sustain themselves and keep these lawyers tanned, rested and ready to sue zoos, farms, labs and other animal enterprises at the drop of a hat. Just one foundation — The Open Philanthropy Project — has directed more than $100 million to animal rights organizations in the past six years.

Animal rights lawyers work in two broad ways.

One is working within the existing legal system to play offense. They may use the Endangered Species Act to try to tie up economic development. They may use a state consumer protection statute to sue a company for its humane marketing. They may draft and lobby for laws that monkey-wrench supply chains. Even if they lose, they create costs and nuisance for their targets. And if they win, well, just look at California's Prop 12 that controls how animals are housed nationally.

Beyond those incursions, the radical attorney bar is also trying to drastically change the system.

A group called the Nonhuman Rights Project has been suing in New York to try to liberate animals. Its most recent case involves an elephant at the Bronx Zoo. They want the supposedly imprisoned elephant to be freed to a sanctuary. (The zoo is accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums.)

What’s different about this case is the Nonhuman Rights Project is bringing a habeas corpus action and trying to get a court to recognize that animals have their own autonomy. Essentially, they are trying to weasel their way into getting a court somewhere to recognize that animals, legally, are “persons.”

Legal “personhood” provides standing to sue. Corporations — which are really just groups of humans — have legal personhood. But animals do not have because they cannot have moral duties like human beings can.

The system we have already provides for animal welfare. But it also prevents activists from achieving their ultimate goal of animal liberation because people are still allowed to own and use animals.

And so they want to change the rules. And giving animals the right to bring legal action — in reality, the ability of activists to bring legal action “on animals’ behalf” — would get them there.

Don’t take my word for it. At last month’s Animal Law Conference, there was a panel on this very matter. “The status of animals as legal property is an outdated common law construct,” read the panel introduction. “Judges are starting to agree and beginning to take apart the construct.”

It’s easy to laugh this stuff off. It’ll never happen here, right? Just wait until they get a millennial judge.

When farm animals can sue

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