Professor of Law and Nicholas deB. Katzenbach Distinguished Scholar of Law and Philosophy. (Criminal Law; Criminal Procedure; Jurisprudence; Human Rights and Animal Rights; Seminar on Animal Rights.) Professor Francione received his B.A. in philosophy from the University of Rochester, where he was awarded the Phi Beta Kappa O'Hearn Scholarship that allowed him to pursue graduate study in philosophy in Great Britain. He received his M.A. in philosophy and his J.D. from the University of Virginia. He was articles editor of the Virginia Law Review.
After graduation, Professor Francione clerked for Judge Albert Tate Jr., U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor of the U.S. Supreme Court. He was an associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore in New York before joining the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1984, where he was tenured in 1987. He joined the Rutgers faculty in 1989.
Professor Francione has been teaching animal rights and the law for more than 20 years, and he was the first academic to teach animal rights theory in an American law school. He has lectured on the topic throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe, has served as a member of the guest faculty of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, and has been a guest on numerous radio and television shows. He is well known throughout the animal protection movement for his criticism of animal welfare law and the property status of nonhuman animals, and for his abolitionist theory of animal rights.
Professor Francione is the author of numerous books and articles on animal rights theory and animals and the law, including Introduction to Animal Rights: Your Child or the Dog? (2000) (foreword by Alan Watson); Animals, Property, and the Law (1995) (foreword by William M. Kunstler); Rain Without Thunder: The Ideology of the Animal Rights Movement (1996); and Vivisection and Dissection in the Classroom: A Guide to Conscientious Objection (with Anna E. Charlton) (1992). His forthcoming book, Animals as Persons: Essays on the Abolition of Animal Exploitation, will be published by Columbia University Press in 2007. Professor Francione has also written in the areas of copyright, patent law, and law and science. His law review articles on intellectual property have been selected for inclusion in The Intellectual Property Review.
Professors Francione and his colleague Anna Charlton started and operated the Rutgers Animal Rights Law Clinic from 1990-2000, making Rutgers the first university in the United States to have animal rights law as part of the regular academic curriculum and to award students academic credit not only for classroom work, but also for work on actual cases involving animal issues. Professors Francione and Charlton represented without charge individual animal advocates, grassroots animal groups, and national and international animal organizations. Professor Francione currently teaches (with Adjunct Professor Charlton) a course on human rights and animal rights and a seminar on animal rights theory and the law. He also teaches courses on criminal law, criminal procedure, jurisprudence, torts, and legal philosophy.
