Federal Judge Denies RIPTA’s Request to Dismiss First Amendment Lawsuit, Orders Case to Move Forward

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – A federal judge has denied the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority’s (RIPTA) request to dismiss the First Amendment lawsuit brought by a medical ethics group trying to bring public attention to Brown University’s deadly use of animals for medical training. The ruling, on November 27, allows the case brought by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine to move forward. The lawsuit was sparked by RIPTA’s refusal to display advertisements on its buses and bus shelters declaring, “Brown and Rhode Island Hospital Think You’re a Pig,” The medical centers named in the ad run one of the last emergency medicine residency programs in the U.S. and Canada still using live animals. Trainees cut open pigs’ necks to practice a single procedure known as a surgical airway. The Physicians Committee pointed out in its legal filing that 97% of such programs—including those at Harvard, Yale, and Kent Hospital in Warwick—have replaced animals.

In the ruling, Chief Judge John J. McConnell, Jr., found that the Physicians Committee had plausibly alleged that RIPTA’s actions violated the group’s First Amendment rights. The Physicians Committee claims that RIPTA’s advertising policy, which bans demeaning or disparaging content, has been applied inconsistently, as RIPTA approved and ran similar ads in 2020 under the same policy. The judge ruled that the Physicians Committee’s claims should be heard in court.

"Rhode Island residents deserve to know that emergency doctors at Brown and Rhode Island Hospital cut open and kill animals,” said Mark Kennedy, Esq., the Physicians Committee’s senior vice president of legal affairs. “It is a dangerous practice out of step with mainstream medicine, and RIPTA is keeping this information from the public.”

The practice at Brown and Rhode Island Hospital has raised serious concerns among state lawmakers. Earlier this year, Rep. Patricia Serpa and Sen. John Burke introduced H 7234 and S 2398, respectively. The legislation would have required medical centers to use nonanimal methods to train doctors if such methods exist and are used by another similar educational program within the state. In April, a group of physicians testified in support of Burke’s bill, during which they pointed to numerous scientific studies showing that animals are unnecessary to teach surgical airway and other emergency procedures.

To speak with Mr. Kennedy or for a copy of the lawsuit, please contact Reina Pohl at 202-527-7326 or rpohl [at] pcrm.org (rpohl[at]pcrm[dot]org).