Felony charges for activist who ‘glitter bombed’ Harvard president

An animal rights activist who “glitter bombed” Harvard University’s interim president appeared in court for a virtual hearing this week as she faces a slew of criminal charges stemming from the May incident. 

Brittany Drake could be heard shouting “for the baby monkeys!” before she showered interim president Alan Garber with glitter ahead of his Alumni Day remarks on May 31, per video of the incident. 

After dumping the glitter, she yelled, “For the animals in the labs! Harvard, shut down the baby monkey labs now!” The crowd erupted in jeering and booing, while Garber could be heard off-camera saying, “It’s fine. I could use a little glitter.” 

He then opened his speech with a gamely quip: “I hope that Harvard will always continue to be a place where speech, free speech, continues to thrive.” 

Drake is charged with three felonies: Assault and battery on a person over the age of 60, and two counts of malicious destruction of property over $1,200. She is also facing three misdemeanors, including disturbing a public assembly, trespassing, and disturbing the peace.

She pleaded not guilty to all charges during an initial arraignment in Cambridge District Court on June 3 and was released on personal recognizance with orders to stay away from Harvard and have no contact with her alleged victim, court records show. 

Drake had a virtual pre-trial hearing on Tuesday and is due back in court Sept. 24. Boston.com contacted her lawyers and a Harvard spokesperson for comment. 

In a May press release, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals identified Drake as a PETA supporter and said the glitter bombing was “part of PETA’s relentless campaign demanding an end to experimenter [and Harvard professor] Margaret Livingstone’s shockingly cruel tests on infant monkeys.”

The Livingstone Lab studies vision in the primate brain, according to its website. In a 2022 statement responding to concerns about her lab’s animal research, Livingstone said animal rights activists use tactics that have “miscast my work, twisted facts, and spread inaccurate and false information wrapped in emotionally charged, inflammatory language.” 

She clarified that she started working with young macaques in 2014 and, while her lab performed two reversible eyelid-closure procedures on macaques in 2016, the experiments now use non-invasive techniques such as goggles. 

“Do I wish we lived in a world where generating this important knowledge were possible without the use of lab animals? Of course! Alas, we are not there yet,” Livingstone wrote. “We continue to work toward this future through our ongoing efforts to refine, reduce, and replace animal models — the three Rs of animal research.”

Harvard Medical School, for its part, released a statement in 2022 alleging that PETA’s published information about the Livingstone Lab is “misleading and contains factual inaccuracies.” 

Still, the lab’s experimentation has continued to raise concern among the research community. 

“While president Garber and his fellow alums sip Prosecco and pat each other on the back, baby monkeys are trapped in a living hell in Margaret Livingstone’s laboratory,” PETA senior vice president Kathy Guillermo said in a May statement. “PETA calls on Garber to listen to the scientific consensus, shut down this abhorrent lab, and invest in animal-free research that actually helps humans.”