Students at Brandeis recently formed an activist group to protest the use of aversive therapy and electric skin shocks on students at the Judge Rotenberg Center, a school for children with special needs located in Canton, Mass.The school serves both "students with conduct, behavior, emotional, and/or psychiatric problems" as well as "students with autistic-like behaviors," according to the State Senate's Web site.

Representatives are trying to move up hearings on the issue to January in order to have aversive therapy banned.

"Our group's mission is essentially to get the [Rotenberg] Center investigated and to get the use of electric shocks stopped," said Nathan Robinson '11, the founder of the Massachusetts students united against the Judge Rotenberg Center.

The Boston Globe reported last May that there were several failed attempts to shut down the judicial Center and its use of electric shocks as a method of disciplining students, as judges sided with parents who defended the Center's actions. Those parents view the facility as a much-needed last resort for "problem children" who have been expelled from other institutions as a result of severe behavioral or emotional issues. The Center's Web site has a link to 82 letters of support it has received from parents of students who learn there.

Officials at the school say that electric shock therapy is a preferable alternative to giving students antipsychotic drugs to control violent outbursts, and that shocks are administered to keep the students from seriously injuring themselves.

Robinson acknowledged that the Judge Rotenberg Center controversy is emotionally charged and complicated but his club has conducted the necessary research to formulate a coherent opinion on the matter.

"We've read news articles, consulted Web sites, and heard many different perspectives about the use of aversive therapy," Robinson said. "We really feel that we have all the facts. There are a number of sides to the issue, and we did not want to make a rush to judgment."

Robinson said the group has also investigated alternatives to electric shocks as a means of discipline, looking at programs that don't use pain to punish students.

"As a whole, the group has decided that the use of pain as treatment is unacceptable," Robinson said.

The group came to that conclusion after approaching the electric shock issue with a neutral perspective, Robinson said.

Liza Behrendt '11, a member of the group, said that protests at the Center, a letter-writing campaign to get in touch with local legislators and trips to meet with state representatives are courses of action the group plans to take to raise awareness about the issue.

"There has not really been any public outcry about his issue," Behrendt said. "We are trying to raise awareness on campus. Before three weeks ago, I had never heard of the problem. Hopefully state representatives will take notice if we're able to get support for a grassroots campaign."

Robinson noted that Brandeis students, however, quick to take action.

The Globe reported on proposed legislation that would limit the use of aversive therapy in Massachusetts to only the most extreme self-injury cases and would set up a commission to regulate it.