2025 UCCHRE Human Rights in Higher Education Award Recipient
Congratulations to the 2025 recipient of the Human Rights in Higher Education Award!
Dr. William Paul Simmons
The Human Rights in Higher Education Award recognizes an individual, organization, initiative, or publication for its outstanding contribution to human rights education. The first international award in human rights education, it aims to acknowledge work that embodies human rights principles in teaching, learning, research, policies and practices.
Dr. William Paul Simmons is a Professor of Gender & Women’s Studies and Founder of the online Human Rights Practice Program at the University of Arizona. Some of his publications include Joyful Human Rights (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019), Human Rights Law and the Human Rights Law and the Marginalized Other (Cambridge UP, 2011), and articles and a book chapter exploring legal remedies for the feminicides in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico.
He has served as a consultant on human rights and social justice issues in The Gambia, Niger, Nigeria, Bangladesh, China, Mexico, and the United States. He has a strong record of building coalitions and facilitating collaboration among diverse actors around the world in support of human rights and practice.
2024 UCCHRE Human Rights in Higher Education Award Recipient
Congratulations to Dr. Cher Weixia Chen!
The UCCHRE Human Rights in Higher Education Award promotes work that embodies human rights principles and practices in teaching, learning, research, policies, and practices. It recognizes an individual, organization, initiative, or publication for its outstanding contribution to human rights education.We congratulate Dr. Cher Weixia Chen and thank everyone who submitted a nomination this year!
We recognized the 2024 award recipient, Dr. Cher Weixia Chen, during the virtual UCCHRE/Human Rights USA Human Rights Day Celebration on December 10, 2024.
Dr. Cher Weixia Chen is an Associate Professor in the School of Integrative Studies at George Mason University. She is the founder of the Human Rights and Global Justice Initiative, a Senior Scholar at the Center for the Advancement of Well-Being, and a Faculty Fellow with the Institute for a Sustainable Earth. Dr. Chen has been instrumental in creating the undergraduate Social Justice and Human Rights concentration, the Social Justice and Human Rights minor, and the MAIS Social Justice and Human Rights concentration, all of which have grown significantly over time. She also teaches and coordinates courses spanning International Studies, Legal Studies, and Social Justice and Human Rights.
Dr. Chen’s scholarship in human rights education includes her co-authored book, International Human Rights: A Survey (Cambridge University Press, 2022). This book offers an interdisciplinary approach that moves beyond traditional legal frameworks, with a focus on the Global South. It addresses underexplored areas such as socioeconomic, environmental, and cultural rights, as well as the rights of marginalized populations, including women, children, indigenous peoples, labor, and LGBTQ+ communities. Dr. Chen is also leading a collaborative project with scholars and educators from over ten countries, resulting in the forthcoming edited volume, Interdisciplinary Human Rights in the Global Curriculum (Cambridge University Press, 2025). This volume examines the intersections of human rights with various disciplines, aiming to create a more inclusive and diverse community of human rights educators and scholars.
Dr. Chen’s research focuses on the rights of marginalized groups, including women and indigenous peoples, the well-being of social justice and human rights activists, and international and comparative legal studies. Her publications include Compliance and Compromise: The Jurisprudence of Gender Pay Equity (Brill/Martinus Nijhoff, 2011), Activism, Burnout, and Community in Higher Education: Narratives of College Student Activists (Routledge, 2025), and the forthcoming Prohibiting Workplace Sexual Harassment: A Cross-Cultural Analysis (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2025).
HRE USA 