Congratulations to the Class of 2021! |
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To the 2021 Human Rights Certificate graduates,
We celebrate your completion of four years of study at Duke University! This has been a challenging year and we want to honor everything you have accomplished and overcome. We are grateful to be a part of your community during your time at Duke and look forward to staying in touch as you discern the next chapter in your life. The world needs people who care about human rights now more than ever. Congratulations on this extraordinary accomplishment and please stay in touch!
Sincerely,
DHRC@FHI faculty and staff
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Meet the 2021 Human Rights Certificate Graduates |
This year we are celebrating 13 Human Rights Certificate graduates! Congratulations to Eritrea Temesghen, Sarah Kane, Naraya Price, Zara Porter, Jordan Diamond, De’Ja Wood, Allayne Thomas, Daniel Raftis, Cecilia Cardelle, Ce’Ondra Ellison, Stefanie Pousoulides, Olivia Kramer and Multy Oliver! We invite everyone to learn more about these incredible students on our website.
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Human Rights Research Grant Recipients |
The recipients for this year’s Human Rights Research Grant includes five undergraduates and one graduate student with projects ranging from water and sanitation access in Egypt and Sudan to environmental injustices in U.S. prisons. Students will also explore eugenics and reproductive rights in North Carolina, access to healthcare for African migrants in Italy, and water desalination governance in Southern California. Congratulations to Sama Elmahdy (’22), Hadeel Hamoud (’22), Isaiah Mason (’22), Cydney Livingston (’22), Liyu Woldemichael (’22), and Ekta Patel (4th year Ph.D. student.). Read more. |
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2021 Oliver Koonz Human Rights Prize Winners |
The recipients of the 2021 Oliver W. Koonz Prize—which recognizes the innovative work being done on human rights by students—are Genevieve Beske and Shania Khoo.
The 2021 Best Essay was awarded to Genevieve Beske for her essay on “Tipping the Scales of Power: The Effect of Gratuities on Pullman Porter Agency in the Early 20th Century”. In her research essay, Genevieve Beske explores how historically marginalized Black men created a proud brotherhood within the constraints of white supremacy.
The 2021 Best Alternative Project was awarded to Shania Khoo. In her very creative zine, Comrades, Shania Khoo assembles photographs, posters, artwork, news headlines, academic articles, and fiction that documents transnational and domestic encounters between Asian and Black communities across nearly a century of human rights activism.
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Watch the 7 Videos in the Rights in the Classroom Series
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Take a glimpse into a Duke human rights class with a featured speaker. This new series makes a virtue out of our current Zoom reality by allowing the public to listen in. Topics include rights in speculative fiction, the future of the death penalty, and the changing map of US refugee resettlement. The complete series includes the following videos:
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New Fellowships and Internships Resource Page |
If you are looking for a fellowship or internship, please check out the new resource page on the DHRC website. You can find opportunities with organizations that focus on civil rights, labor rights, climate change, environmental justice, food rights, refugee resettlement, immigration, health, human trafficking and much more. Visit the website to learn more.
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Intra-Catholic Debates and the Reagan Administration |
By Zac Johnson, Class of ‘22
Intra-Catholic debates in particular have been pivotal to shaping the United States’ policy toward Central American policy. Keeley focused on the administration of President Ronald Reagan, which contained many conservative Catholics despite Reagan himself being Protestant...Read more.
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Reflection on “A Genocide in our Time: China’s Internal Campaign Against a Muslim Minority” |
By Liyu Woldemichael, ‘22
On March 4th, two events addressing the condition of the Uyghur minority in China were organized. Both events helped trace the history of Uyghurs to the present-day. Currently, over a million members of China’s Uyghur ethnic minority, who are largely Muslim, are being held in so-called "reeducation camps"... more.
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Global Ideas, Local Impact: The Annual Celebration of Human Rights at Duke |
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Pauli Murray Center Update: House Bill 345 filed by N.C. House Representative Vernetta Alston |
N.C. House Representative Vernetta Alston filed HB 345 to provide a grant that will ensure the accessibility of the National Historic Landmark Pauli Murray Family Home. Vernetta Alston served on the Durham City Council from 2017 to 2020, when she succeeded MaryAnn Black in the North Carolina House of Representatives. Learn more about the bill.
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Why Did You Pursue the Human Rights Certificate? |
Olivia Kramer: The first course I enrolled in at Duke was Prof. Juliette Duara’s “Human Rights and Legal Redress” which immediately peaked my interest in the legal complexities associated with human rights. Through this course, I acquired an understanding of the international, regional and local human rights conventions and structures which propose, cultivate and enforce human rights norms...more.
Jordan Diamond: I decided to pursue the Human Rights Certificate because I was looking for a different way to contextualize my studies of literature and Jewish history, especially with regards to the Holocaust. Studying race and nationalisms in my human rights courses has allowed me to approach this history with a much more complete understanding, and has introduced me to a lot of other contemporary discussions of human rights abuses...more.
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Naraya Price: I’ve worked in rural Mississippi teaching 7th, 8th, and 9th graders reading comprehension. I’ve tutored women in the NC Raleigh Women’s Prison. I’ve worked in impact litigation setting at the American Civil Liberties Union, and I’ve done re-entry work with juveniles at Bronx Defenders. My path outside of the classroom has been transformed by the Human Rights Certificate and the desire to understand how human rights issues become cyclical...more.
Ce’Ondra Ellison: The certificate is unique from other programs at Duke due to the ability to study human rights issues from different disciplines. Being exposed to how different faculty and departments approach the issue of human rights has helped me to start formulating my own approach to human rights issues that involves a combination of research and advocacy work...more.
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Alumni Working in Human Rights |
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Isabella Szabolcs: I interned at the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Geneva, Switzerland, where I later became a consultant. At OHCHR, I developed advocacy strategies and content to publicize human rights reports and the work of the UN monitoring mechanisms. I also interviewed experts and victims, and worked closely with human rights officers to identify pressing human rights issues, highlight how to address them and mobilize public action...more.
Aayah El-Naggar: Because my law practice is centered around Immigration Law, the human rights issues I deal with are centered around that. Many of my pro bono clients are facing abusive relationships and need help understanding their Immigration options if they want to leave their partner. I also take on clients who are detained and seeking parole or bond so that they may remain with their families are friends while their underlying applications are being adjudicated...more.
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Mariana Calvo: I also think it’s important to have a reckoning about the costs of having a news media that is so US-centric. In my experience, all human rights issues are global and interconnected. The solutions and, therefore, the stories we tell must be international and intersectional. While there is still a lot of room to improve, I am humbled to see so many rising journalists who are going against the grain and telling stories that are more inclusive of our global community...more.
Kyle Knight: It’s a thrilling and all-encompassing career path. I think the most satisfying part has been the people I get to work with—activists all over the world. At times it’s completely exhausting...But it’s a profoundly interesting job even on the most difficult of days. In terms of personal life, I was away from home for a lot of my 20s and my relationships with family and friends definitely changed during that time. That said, I made incredible friends wherever I was—largely through work—and I wouldn’t trade it for the world...more.
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'As the Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray Preached, We Can Strive to Meet Discrimination against LGBTQ+ People with Revolutionary Love' |
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Pauli Murray Center board member Jesse Huddleston published an op-ed about the Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray in INDY Week. He reflects on Pauli Murray's legacy and the contemporary marginalization of LGBTQ+ people both within North Carolina and nationally.
"Pauli’s endeavor to draw a larger circle, including the very ones who would exclude her, is a noteworthy challenge to create something we all deserve, to commit to honor our shared personhood, to construct policies and practices that are more creative, inclusive, and humanizing"... Read the complete article.
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Nancy MacLean Awarded 2021-2022 National Humanities Center Fellowship |
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Nancy MacLean, William H. Chafe Distinguished Professor of History and Public Policy and member of the Executive Committee for the Duke Human Rights Center@FHI has been awarded a National Humanities Center fellowship for 2021-2022. Nancy MacLean is an award-winning scholar of the twentieth-century U.S., whose book, Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America, has been described by Publishers Weekly as “a thoroughly researched and gripping narrative… [and] a feat of American intellectual and political history.” Her research next year will focus on Capitalism and the Constitution: An Overlooked American Lineage and a Looming Peril.
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Police Killings of Black Americans Amount to Crimes Against Humanity, International Inquiry Finds |
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The systematic killing and maiming of unarmed African Americans by police amount to crimes against humanity that should be investigated and prosecuted under international law, an inquiry into US police brutality by leading human rights lawyers from around the globe has found.
A week after the former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of murder in George Floyd’s death, the unabated epidemic of police killings of Black men and women in the US has now attracted scorching international attention. Read the article in The Guardian.
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‘I Never Thought China Could Ever Be This Dark’ |
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In recent years, Beijing has mounted a crackdown in Xinjiang against the mostly Muslim Uyghur ethnic group, subjecting its people to mass detention and unending surveillance in a merciless act of collective punishment. Roughly 1 million Uyghurs have been rounded up for “crimes” that include praying, wearing a headscarf, and having relatives overseas, human-rights groups say. The United States, as well as the Canadian and Dutch Parliaments, have labeled the repression a genocide. Read the complete article in The Atlantic.
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Summer Session Course: Creating Arts Access for People with Disabilities. |
This course (THEATRST 290S-5 ) will focus attention on the opportunities for the arts (theaters, museums, galleries, concert venues, school programs, etc.) to increase the participation of persons with disabilities and to include persons with disabilities as part of the discussions for increasing diversity. The course will explore the changing societal values with regards to including access for persons with disabilities, and examine arts access as both an ethical/societal obligation as well as an opportunity. Learn more about the course.
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Duke Immerse is similar to FOCUS but unlike any other program among our peer universities. Students take a set of 4 courses fall 2021. The theme of this program is Pandemics, Health & Power. Some of the courses being offered are: Climate, Coffee & Coronavirus: Why ecology matters to human health (GLHLTH 153S), Literatures and Films of Pandemics (IGLHLTH 278S), Lives that Matter: Race, Disability, and the Ethics of Care/Work (RIGHTS 390S), History of Death (HIST 410S). Learn more about Duke Immerse. The deadline for applications is 4th May.
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The Duke Human Rights Center @ the Franklin Humanities Institute brings together an interdisciplinary group of scholars, staff and students to promote new understandings about global human rights issues. |
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