Human Rights Program, academic minor to launch Wednesday with lecture and events

Elisa Massimino, president and CEO of Human Rights First, will talk about the United States’ role in global human rights on Wednesday (Sept. 7) at Purdue.

Massimino will present “U.S. Leadership on Global Human Rights” at 5-6 p.m. in Beering Hall, Room 2290. A reception will follow at 6-7 p.m. in the Beering Hall lobby. Both events are free and open to the public.

The event is to recognize the College of Liberal Arts’ new Human Rights Program and undergraduate minor. A grant from the CLA Innovate Undergraduate Education Fund has facilitated this multidisciplinary initiative, which is housed in the Department of Philosophy and is led this year by Rebekah Klein-Pejšová, associate professor of history.

The program brings together faculty from the College of Liberal Arts and the College of Education to pool their expertise and their commitment to the field of human rights. The minor provides a foundation in human rights history, theory, and applications, enabling students to discover the dynamism of such a wide-ranging area of enquiry. Students are invited to explore the field from the perspectives of Anthropology, Classics, History, Philosophy, Political Science, and Sociology. This grounding will serve some students as the basis for planning future work in human rights analysis and advocacy (such as law, development, international relations, or policy studies). Other students will find the minor equally productive as an intellectual lens through which to view their critical investigations in other fields. All Human Rights students will benefit from acquiring skills needed by informed global citizens. An information booth to introduce Purdue’s program will be located on Memorial Mall from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday (Sept. 7).

Human Rights First is an independent advocacy organization based in New York, Washington, D.C., and Houston. The organization was established in 1978 and is a global leader on human rights.

“Elisa Massimino will show why human rights can play a critical role in breaking down boundaries between academic disciplines and between diverse political perspectives,” said Antonia Syson, associate professor of classics and an affiliated faculty member in human rights. “Human Rights First has an exceptional track record in bringing human rights principles to bear on U.S. policy by building effective coalitions. Its current work addresses human trafficking, refugee policy, closing Guantanamo, and LGBT rights.”

Massimino joined Human Rights First as a staff attorney in 1991 to help establish the Washington office. From 1997 to 2008 she served as the organization’s Washington director. Massimino has a distinguished record of human rights advocacy in Washington. As a national authority on human rights law and policy, she has testified before Congress dozens of times and writes frequently for mainstream publications and specialized journals. Since 2008, the influential Washington newspaper The Hill has consistently named her one of the most effective public advocates in the country. 

Massimino also serves as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center, where she teaches human rights advocacy, and has taught international human rights law at the University of Virginia and refugee law at the George Washington University School of Law. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the bar of the United States Supreme Court.

Writer: Amy Patterson Neubert, 765-494-9723, apatterson@purdue.edu

Sources:
Ann-Marie Clark, associate professor of political science, clarkam@purdue.edu
Antonia Syson, asyson@purdue.edu
Rebekah Klein-Pejšová, rkleinpe@purdue.edu