Oklahoma State University president Burns Hargis has pulled the plug on a scientific study involving baboons. He says the decision has nothing to do with the animal rights movement--but then other admins say it does.

...despite the university president's statement that animal rights groups didn't influence the decision, Gary Shutt, director of communications, confirmed in an interview Tuesday that the decision was based in part on what other universities -- particularly in California -- have experienced when their researchers have become the targets of animal rights groups.

"There are various factors -- there are some confidential things that the president learned as he discussed this with presidents of other universities, and people outside the university that raised some concern and also the factor that this is controversial research," Shutt said.

He stressed that no threats had been received against Oklahoma State, and that the concern came from what has happened at other campuses.

Asked whether canceling a research project because it is controversial and could lead to threats might undermine academic freedom, Shutt said "we're not going to get into all of that."

President Hargis attended a faculty meeting Tuesday where he heard complaints that he hadn't in fact consulted with professors on the matter. Some faculty members are particularly concerned because the research in question had undergone (and received approval from) the faculty committee charged with overseeing research involving animals. Shutt said that the president acknowledged that he had made the decision "without consulting the faculty and said that wouldn't happen again." Shutt said that while the president was committed to working on "the process" for future consultation, he would not reconsider this decision.

The AAUP gets this one right -- as it also got right Yale University Press' decision not to publish the notorious Mohammed cartoons in a scholarly book issued earlier this year. Here's AAUP president Cary Nelson:

"I expect that Oklahoma State has procedures for reviewing and approving grants before they are submitted. Such orderly due process is fundamental to academic freedom," he said, noting that the NIH would also have reviewed the project. "It is the duty of the university to make certain that faculty members can carry out research that has been locally approved and federally funded. Fear of consequences gives us a telling example of administrative cowardice at Oklahoma State but not a satisfactory reason for canceling a research project. Once again, a university has caved in to imagined threats."