The Beach Boys wrote a song called "Pet Sounds." In a recently filed federal lawsuit, animal rights organization People for the Ethical Treatment Animals ("PETA") claims that it has a First Amendment right to receive monkey sounds (as well as monkey movements).
The lawsuit, filed on March 6, 2025 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, is entitled People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals v. National Institute of Mental Health, et al., No. 8:25-cv-00736-PX. The case centers on research done in an NIMH laboratory that utilizes the Rhesus Macaque. According to the Tulane University National Primate Research Center, Rhesus Macaques are placed within the Cercopithecidae family (Old World Monkeys), So, for simplicity, we'll refer to them as monkeys.
The gravamen of the lawsuit is that the federal defendants turned down PETA's request for a live-stream audiovisual feed of the monkeys in the laboratory. PETA claims that the monkeys are "willing speakers" who "regularly communicat[e]" about their physical and psychological condition. According to PETA's complaint, experts in monkey communication claim the ability to understand the information that the animal sounds, body posture, facial expression and other actions purportedly convey. PETA claims that denying it the ability to communicate with "fellow primates" violates PETA's First Amendment rights, and PETA therefore wants the court to permanently enjoin the defendants from "withholding from PETA ... access to the rhesus macaques' communications."
PETA's track record in opposing animal-based medical and mental health research is well-known. Thus, most of the complaint is devoted to describing the research that is performed, the conditions of the laboratory and in making PETA's overall case for the abolition of animal-based research. However, the First Amendment predicate for the case is extremely thin, if not nonexistent. PETA cites a number of cases to the effect that there is a First Amendment right to receive information even though the speaker may not, itself, have a First Amendment right. But PETA cites no case (and we are aware of none) holding that the sounds and body gestures of a monkey constitute speech that is protected under the First Amendment – whether it concerns the speaker's right to speak or the listener's right to receive.
PETA's complaint also pleads a denial of due process under the Fifth Amendment but is very vague on what "property" or "liberty" interest of PETA was allegedly violated.
This isn't the first time that PETA and other animal rights groups have sought attention by trying to get a court to confer human rights on an animal, but very few of these efforts has succeeded. Thus, killer whales are not subject to the Thirteenth Amendment, elephants are not covered by the writ of habeas corpus, a Bengal tiger can't pursue a Freedom of Information Act request, humans don't have "next friend" standing to pursue a copyright claim on behalf of a monkey or a bill of attainder claim on behalf of a barn owl, and dogs, birds and dugongs don't have standing in federal court to sue. PETA's current effort to have a federal court declare monkey speech protected by the First Amendment would clearly seem to be headed for a similar fate. Indeed, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit rejected an effort to invoke the First Amendment on behalf of "Blackie the Talking Cat," an animal that allegedly "spoke, for a fee, on radio and on television shows such as 'That's Incredible.'" Miles v. City Council of Augusta, Ga., 710 F.2d 1542, 1543 (11th Cir. 1983) (per curiam). Affirming dismissal of the First Amendment claim, the court ruled that it "will not hear a claim that Blackie's right to free speech has been infringed. . . . [A]lthough Blackie arguably possesses a very unusual ability, he cannot be considered a 'person' and is therefore not protected by the Bill of Rights." Id. at 1544 n.5.
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