A-Infos (en) US, Anti-Authoritarian jornal BAAM #27 - The Battle Against the BU Bio lab: Seven Years of Struggle by Jake B

When Boston University first announced the construction of a Level Four Biosafety Lab on 
the border of Roxbury and Boston's South End in 2002, they had planned to have the lab 
fully operational by 2005. Now, seven years later, the lab is built and ready to operate, 
but is at a legal standstill due to years of hard fought struggle by opponents of the lab, 
who claim that the lab's operations will endanger the lives of those living in the 
surrounding communities. ---- The Biolab was originally proposed by President George Bush 
after the September 11th attacks. It is one of two labs proposed, the other is already 
operating in Texas. The lab would run tests on deadly pathogens, such as ebola, anthrax, 
plague and many others, earning itself the name "bioterror lab" from its opponents.

The pathogens would be transported through some of the city's poorest
and most populated areas by FedEx trucks.
Meanwhile, the city of Boston has no credible
evacuation or emergency response procedure
for dealing with an outbreak.
    The neighborhood of Roxbury, where the
lab was built, is a low-income community
of color that already bears an incredible en-
vironmental burden. Roxbury hosts most of
Boston's trash transfer stations, meaning
most of Boston's trash ends up there at the
end of the day. The neighborhood also has
multiple Superfund sites, sites identified by
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
as toxic and hazardous enough to be priori-
tized for federal clean up. Because of these
environmental inequalities, Roxbury has the
highest rate of asthma in the area.
    Klare Allen, a community organizer in Rox-
bury with a background in environmental jus-
tice, first heard about the Biolab at a community
meeting. Recognizing immediately the threat
it posed to the community, she began speak-
ing to other members of Safetynet, the Rox-
bury-based tenants' rights group she organiz-
es with, about building a resistance to the lab.
    The resistance began in 2003 and Safetynet,
which is composed entirely of Roxbury resi-
dents, was soon joined by the Stop the Biolab
Coalition, a group of community organizers,
activists, students, lawyers and scientists who
oppose the lab. Over the following years the
coalition engaged in direct action, including
disrupting speeches by the BU scientists, dis-
rupting tours of BU, banner drops, unpermit-
ted marches against the lab and an occupation
of the BU president's office that resulted in
multiple expulsions.

    Meanwhile, the battle was also being
fought on the legal front, with Coalition law-
yers suing the lab in state, federal, and civil
courts. In August 2006, thanks to the com-
bined efforts of legal and direct action, a state
judge ordered further environmental review
of the lab. The judge found that earlier assess-
ments of the environmental impacts of the lab
failed to adequately consider alternative sites
or weigh worst-case scenarios. Since this
ruling, the lab has been subject to multiple
worst-case scenario evaluations, failing each
one. Meanwhile, a federal suit pushed the Na-
tional Institute of Health to conduct multiple
investigations, which are still going on. The
lab is currently at a legal standstill and will be
operating no sooner than 2011.
    The resistance is now fighting the lab on a
third level: political. Though not typically a
tactic of radical organizing, opponents of the
lab are now seeing a great opportunity in the
upcoming city elections for mayor and city
councilors. Mayor Menino has been a sup-
porter of the lab since day one, personally
granting the space and permits to BU for the
lab free of charge. Flaherty, his opponent, is
a soft-spoken opponent of the lab, whereas
his running mate, Sam Yoon, more vocally
        Harvard Worker Facing
   Racism Fired for Complaining
           by Geoff Carens
R
          avi Raj, a member of the Harvard
          Union of Clerical and Technical
          Workers, experienced shocking ra-
cial discrimination on the job. His supervisor
mocked his Indian accent and called him rac-
ist names at work. When Ravi complained to
the University, his situation got even worse.
His boss took away his office, denigrated his
work, yelled at him in front of colleagues, and
inflicted other retaliatory discipline on Ravi.
    When Ravi set up a meeting to make a for-
mal complaint, a stranger told him, "You have
taken the wrong path...We have checked you
out...Watch out!" Although union members,
students and concerned community members
opposes it. There has been much opposition
to the lab within the city council. This oppo-
sition has been led by Chuck Turner but has
so far not had enough support to receive the
nine out of fourteen votes needed to overturn
a veto from mayor Menino.
    If Flaherty wins, and assuming his oppo-
sition to the lab is genuine, the council will
only need seven votes. The biggest supporter
of the lab, Ego Ezedi, a former BU employee,
has already been knocked out in the prima-
ries. Many candidates have voiced their op-
position to the lab. Meanwhile, the coalition
has once again stepped up their action strat-
egy, disrupting a councilor forum, badgering
candidates at meet and greets to give strong
commitments of opposition against the lab
and held a Day of Mayhem on October 30th.
    With the resurgence in resistance from the
Coalition against the Bioterror lab on three
levels (direct action, legal and political),
many are seeing now as the time to put the
final nail in the Biolab's coffin. The oppor-
tunity is time sensitive, as the elections take
place in just a few weeks. But no matter what
the result, organizers have pledged to con-
tinue the struggle until the delay of the lab's
opening is a permanent one. ·

HUCT and SEIU
                            workers and support-
                           ers march for Ravi Raj
                             in Harvard Square.
                             Photo by Greg Hill
held several public actions for Ravi, the man-
agement at his workplace (Harvard's Institute
for Quantitative Science/Harvard-MIT Data
Center) closed ranks behind the abusive boss.
In August the Executive Director of IQSS/
HMDC threatened Ravi in writing with ter-
mination, supposedly for poor performance.,
though Ravi was the most-productive worker
according to management's own statistics.
Just two months later he was fired for sup-
posed misconduct. Many on campus consider
this to be a classic frame-up of an employee
who sought to expose racism at work. One
week after his termination, on October 29, ac-
tivists held a lively picket outside Harvard.
_________________________________________
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