When I first became an animal activist several years ago, Proctor & Gamble was one of the first companies I started to boycott. It wasn’t all that easy, either, since I had relatives who worked there. (Both were about to retire, though.) One of the things that repulsed me the most about the company was that they would sew rabbits’ eyes shut and test personal care products in them to see if they were safe to use on humans. Yeah, that’s not an image that you want in your head when you’re shampooing your hair.

Rabbits, like other pocket pets, aren’t meant to be used to test human inventions and concoctions on. And sadly, P&G—and a plethora of other companies—are not the only places where it occurs. It also happens in our education system, which is no wonder why we produce so many violent children who end up torturing animals as teens and adults. You would think that on the college level, people would cease being so cruel, since college is supposed to be about the acquisition of knowledge. (Okay, most of us know that it’s about the almighty dollar these days, but that’s what colleges are really supposed to be for.)

This knowledge should include how to be a humane person, how to live sustainably, and how to perform the most accurate, modern experiments for the most accurate, modern results—right? In this day and age where we face so many obstacles to peace and sustainability, and need so many cures and scientific advances (other than Viagra, snuggies, and the other inventions we produce), those should be core values that students should be learning, anyway.

But they’re not. Instead, in universities like Arizona State, frogs, rats, bunnies, and other pocket pets—animals many of us care for like members of our own families—are being tortured and destroyed in the name of science. Frogs are being cut open while still alive so students can see their hearts beating; does no one consider the pain that this causes? Like other animals, frogs have nervous systems and can definitely feel pain. Pregnant rats are killed in order to be dissected at the university, and live rabbits have holes cut into their necks so they can be injected with drugs to be tested before they, too, are murdered.

We let students do this to live, breathing animals—and then we expect them to be bright, caring, nonviolent members of society? We might as well be training future serial killers, not to mention really shoddy science. It’s no wonder America produces so little in terms of innovation and science these days when this is how we’re being trained.

Please write to Michael Crow, President of ASU, and ask him to replace these cruel and outdated practices with humane, non-animal testing alternatives today. You can also call him at 480-965-8972.