CALIFORNIA IN BRIEF : SACRAMENTO : UC Davis, Professor Reach Settlement

A veterinary professor who was removed from a course after protesting a requirement that students kill dogs for laboratory work will get $75,000 in an agreement with UC Davis. The university also agreed to take no punitive action against Dr. Nedim Buyukmihci and to reconsider a $4,000-a-year merit raise that had been vetoed. The course Buyukmihci once taught was changed earlier this year to offer the option he had sought, he said. Students who object to killing or harming healthy animals while learning eye surgery may use alternative methods. Buyukmihci, a tenured associate professor and president of the Assn. of Veterinarians for Animal Rights, says it is “a critical victory for the First Amendment as well as for the animal rights movement.”