This year during Banned Books Week 2023 (Oct. 1–7), not only are books being banned, but also the right to teach about racism and LGBTQ+ identity — essentially placing thousands more titles off limits. Official lists of banned books reveal only the tip of the iceberg.

• Create a Pop-up Display
  • Create an interactive display for your school or library to promote discussions about the dangers of banned books and efforts to defend the freedom to learn. We provide free downloadable display materials and guidelines.
• Wear Teach Banned History buttons to promote awareness of how the current legislation bans more than books.
  • Invite conversations about the need to actively oppose book bans, teach truthfully, and defend LGBTQ+ rights. Remind people that the bans go way beyond books — the attacks target the teaching of history and a more inclusive curriculum. Order buttons.
• Find an Event Near You
  • Check out the calendar of events, coordinated by the American Library Association, Freedom to Read Foundation, the National Education Association, PEN America, PFLAG, Project Censored, and more organizations.

>> Learn more and view all resources

>> Learn more about Banned Book Week

Visit this page to get up to date on the latest HRE USA news.

Every Man, Woman and Child is a musical presentation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) released in various formats. The original ballad, which was the FIRST grassroots expression of the UDHR ever performed for the UN in 1987.

Listen to all the versions of Every Man, Woman, and Child on Spotify.

Visit the website

With human rights under threat and change desperately needed in the world, communities around the globe can move, groove, and meditate, bringing the meaning of this lofty idea into intimate, emotional focus through music.

FREE DOWNLOAD of the chant version (recording and score) featuring Harrison Crenshaw, which won a Global Peace Song Award in 2016.

Download music | Download score

Human Rights come into focus globally on
Peace Day, September 21, and Human Rights Day, December 10.
Put your musical events on the United Nations World Peace Event Map!

We are pleased to announce the availability of our latest installment of podcast episodes in Human Rights Education NOW! Episodes 15 & 16 feature conversations with Chris Buckley, Jake Skrzypiec, Kevin Maysonnet, and Shirin Unvala, Connecticut teachers and students. 

Chris Buckley teaches history and human rights at Brookfield High School in Brookfield, Connecticut. Chris serves on the Steering Committee for the Connecticut Human Rights Partnership (CHRP). He is an instructor for the Introduction to Human Rights course offered by the University of Connecticut’s Early College Experience program and an HRE USA Regional Representative for Connecticut. 

Jake Skrzypiec is a social studies educator in Manchester, Connecticut. He developed Manchester High School’s Human Rights class, a required course for all students, and is an Early College Experience instructor through the University of Connecticut. He also serves as secretary of the Connecticut Human Rights Partnership, a non-profit working to advance human rights education and advocacy in the state. He is a frequent educational partner with the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center and a member of the National Council for the Social Studies HRE Community leadership team. Jake serves on the HRE USA Steering Committee and a Regional Representative for Connecticut. 

Kevin Maysonnet is a student at Manchester High School and a member of the University of Connecticut’s Human Rights Close To Home Youth Advisory Team, which engages educators and youth in the development and implementation of human rights education for civic action. 
Shirin Unvala is a student at the Center for Global Studies, Brien McMahon High School and is also a member of the University of Connecticut’s Human Rights Close To Home Youth Advisory Team, which engages educators and youth in the development and implementation of human rights education for civic action.

Taking time to amplify and honor the cultures and contributions of Hispanic and Latino Americans is as imperative as it is galvanizing. Celebrating our pluralistic heritage is essential at a time when Xenophobia is gripping many mainstream news narratives and fueling the fire of a fraught upcoming election year. With the spotlight currently on schools, it is more crucial than ever to reimagine migration in the classroom, champion the powerful work already happening in schools, and build upon those efforts. 

Schools are potent sites of belonging and community building and are often one of the first institutions where immigrant families build immersive relationships. At Re-Imagining Migration, we know how many hats teachers and school administrators wear to make their schools centers of belonging, and we hope our resources will aid you in the process.

Re-Imagining Migration’s Resources for Teachers on a Time Crunch  

• Utilize and tailor the New Year Teacher Toolkit to your needs
• Review the Five Steps For Creating Welcoming And Inclusive Learning Environments
• Skim Lesson Starters, Moving Stories, and Thinking Routines for potential classroom activities
• Reflect on your literary text set and answer “questions to consider in creating a migration text”
• Read Re-Imagining Migration Guide to Creating Curriculum (resources for curriculum building / your unit at the end of the document)
• Explore the 9 Essential Resources for Teaching in a World on the Move for a more comprehensive understanding of Re-Imagining Migration’s offerings  

New Year Teacher Toolkit

Guest Editors: Omolabake Fakunle, University of Edinburgh: omolabake.fakunle@ed.ac.uk and Fiona Hunter, Centre for Higher Education Internationalisation. Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milano

This special issue invites contributions to submit reflective accounts, theoretical papers, or findings from empirical research pointing to the importance of micro-level individual dimension in internationalization. Contributors can utilise different theoretical approaches that speak to the relational dimension of internationalization, such as a decolonial approach or capability approach to underpin articulations of agency amidst structural affordances and constraints.

Proposals should be 500 words and submitted on or before October 1, 2024.

Authors will be notified of their acceptance by November 15, 2024. Completed articles should be submitted by January 30, 2024. All articles will undergo a double-blind peer review process and must follow the JCIHE guidelines: https://www.ojed.org/index.php/jcihe/about/submissions. 

>> See the full call
>> Proposals can be submitted directly to omolabake.fakunle@ed.ac.uk or can be submitted via the JCIHE website

Our next dialogue features activist and community organizer Jiji Wong (they/them) in dialogue with UHRI facilitator Abigayel Bryce (she/they) and you! We’ll explore the question posed by Jiji: While we think of non-profits as inherently philanthropic and overall beneficial, is there something more insidious about them?

The non-profit sector is a trillion dollar industry, with the non profit industrial complex tying non-profits intimately with governments, foundations, and the owning classes. Join the dialogue and share your perspectives on how the system of relationships can cover up more insidious goals and contribute to human rights violations. AND explore how certain community organizations and nonprofits use this knowledge to reduce harm.

As a multiply marginalized Malaysian Chinese person, JiJi (they/them) has a first hand understanding of what it means to be from the Global South living in the imperial core, thus bringing their complex and nuanced understanding of revolutionary struggles. They are an experienced disability justice advocate, transformative justice worker, and general community organizer who has done workshops for all ages from middle schoolers to university students to adults.

As a core member of Xin Sheng Project, a Chinese diasporic collective fighting mis- and dis-information, JiJi has led social media narrative change campaigns and built out the guiding charter to resist the non-profit industrial complex. They are also a founding member of Divine Zine and Think Out of Frame, both anti-imperial publications. At their day job, is a reference librarian straddling the line between social worker and teacher while building information on a microcommunity scale.

Wednesday, September 20, 2023
6-7:30pm PST / 9-10:30pm EST

Edited By Felisa Tibbitts, André Keet

Below is a flyer with a 25% discount for pre-orders – note the more affordable e-version!

This volume explores the application of human rights to higher education through a critical lens. Combining theoretical and applied perspectives, it asks what a human rights framework grounded in liberation and justice can offer to ways of working and teaching practices in higher education.

Human rights, in this edited compilation, call for continuous critical engagements around the higher education transformation project. The book recognizes human rights simultaneously as law, values, and emancipatory vision. It showcases global north and global south perspectives and encourages a dialogue between the human rights approach and other approaches to higher education transformation, such as decolonialization, anti-racism, diversity and inclusion, and intersectionality. Individual chapters featuring a range of case studies written from global south and north perspectives critically examine higher education practices linked with human rights, ranging from curricular practices to student activism and community partnerships. The critical space of the university and its role in the transformation of society is therefore viewed in multi-dimensional ways.

Underlining the value of applying human rights as a framework in understanding and designing higher education transformation, the book will be of great interest to scholars, researchers, and post-graduate students in the fields of the sociology of education, human rights education, higher education, and social justice education.