Vegan Librarians Blast Carnivorocentric Report Language

The long-awaited release of a report earlier this week by Beckwith University’s Committee for University Library Oversight (CULO) came as the culmination of a study requested by library director Donald Fudge and was meant to “provide the library with useful data for improving services and aligning library and campus priorities more closely.” But a trio of vegan librarians is steamed over what they have called unabashedly biased, insensitive wording, citing the report’s characterization of periodicals cancellations as “fishy,” recommendations to “beef up” humanities expenditures, and the library’s justification for initiating a digital press as “chicken shit” as just three notable examples. “The phrase ‘chicken shit’ itself has no place in the text whatsoever, but worse than that is the alarming frequency with which CULO peppered their report with language sanctioning meat and meat by-products,” stressed environmental studies librarian and inveterate vegan Kiki Randazzo, head signatory of a stern letter of protest to university president Chafing Sackitch.

After extensive investigative legwork this LP reporter learned that seven of the nine CULO members have family involved in or significant financial ties to statewide fish, game, and livestock industries, raising questions about subtle promotional messages the report language seems to convey and the attendant conflicts of interest. “Finally all the food-related metaphors, similes, and analogies I purged from early drafts of the report make sense,” remarked CULO Chair Brendan Barbary, one of the two committee members unconnected to outside interests.

Neither Fudge nor Sackitch claimed to have any knowledge of the committee’s dubious connections despite the latter’s personal selection of the entire cohort; however, a Freedom of Information Act request has brought to light a series of memoranda of understanding between executives from the aforementioned industries and university development officers—including final approval by Sackitch—providing substantial financial consideration in exchange for textual product placement in the report. “Ultimately, editorial control over the final wording rests with the president, and it was his conscious decision to replace all that ‘meaty’ phraseology I had removed in exchange for corporate mammon,” Barbary observed.

Beckwith’s faculty senate swiftly condemned Sackitch’s scheme as “a new low in administrative money-grubbing” and concurred with the board of regents’ decision to dismiss the president on the grounds of corruption and moral destitution. Randazzo and her vegan cohort were ecstatic at the news, tittering ironically, “Sackitch must really have egg on his face now that he’s been canned and probably working at Hot Dog on a Stick…serves the S.O.B. right!”