Category: News and Updates

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

This position involves developing and managing Amnesty’s Human Rights Education work around the world, including associated strategies, operational plans, and their evaluation and including a strong focus on Education Technology.

The Head of HRE will provide support to the Amnesty International movement for human rights education programming; provide support to regional and thematic human rights education projects; and support the integration and alignment of human rights education with Amnesty International’s global campaigns, regional strategies and growth strategy, and thematic priorities. 

This is a permanent position where you will be managing a remote global team with matrix management responsibilities with staff in regional offices.

London and Oslo are preferable positions, but other Amnesty locations will be considered.

Closing Date: 7 April 2022

For a full job description and instructions about how to apply, visit this page.

Efforts to ban certain subjects from classroom discussion are underway. Critical thinking is being suppressed & educators are at risk.

Thursday, March 31, 2022

6:30 PM – 8:00 PM CDT

REGISTER HERE!

Across the globe efforts are intensifying to censor study of controversial issues, notably those dealing with the study of racism and cultural diversity in public education. Providing education on these subjects is critical to confronting and dismantling systemic racism and building literacy on gender, sexuality, and identity diversity. These are core concepts embedded in human rights that are supported by international human rights guiding principles and standards.

In the US, a handful of states have recently passed legislation limiting or banning these subject areas and establishing punitive actions against educators who are seen as introducing these concepts into the classroom.

In this session we will hear from a panel of individuals who will help us to better understand the polarization of education in the US, how “divisive concepts” and CRT bans are being used to censor academic freedoms and penalize educators for doing their job to teach critical thinking. Join us and share your questions and thoughts about the role of the human rights community in this national discourse.

Speakers:

Astha Bhandari is a senior in high school and Amnesty International USA’s Legislative Coordinator for North Carolina. Astha is active with her school’s Amnesty International Student Group and is an advocate for greater academic freedom in the classroom.

Matthew Hawn: For 16 years, Matthew taught Economics, Contemporary Issues, and Personal Finance at Sullivan Central High School. On May 5, 2021, the Sullivan County Department of Education dismissed Matthew for teaching racial justice in his contemporary issues course. He is appealing the dismissal to the Sullivan County Chancery Court.

Svetlana Mintcheva is a strategy consultant working with program activities at the New York based non-profit, National Coalition Against Censorship (ncac.org) (where she was formerly director of programs). She writes on emerging trends in censorship, organizes public discussions and mobilizes support for individual artists, curators, authors, teachers and librarians. Dr. Mintcheva is the co-editor of Censoring Culture: Contemporary Threats to Free Expression (The New Press, 2006) and of Curating Under Pressure: International Perspectives on Negotiating Conflict and Upholding Integrity (Routledge, 2020). An academic as well as an activist, Dr. Mintcheva has taught literature and critical theory at the University of Sofia, Bulgaria and at Duke University, NC from which she received her Ph.D. in critical theory in 1999, as well as at New York University. Her current research focuses on the challenges to the concept of free speech posed by social media, social justice movements and political polarization.

Jack L. Nelson: Distinguished Professor of Education, emeritus, Rutgers University. Co-author, Critical Issues in Education, 16 other books. Former professor, CSU, Los Angeles, University of Buffalo; Visiting scholar, Cambridge University, Stanford, Berkeley, Sydney, others. Former member, AAUP Committee A (academic freedom), NCSS Academic Freedom Committee, ACLU New Jersey board. Member, Amnesty International.

Dr. India Thusi is a Professor of Law at the Indiana University Bloomington Maurer School of Law and a Senior Scientist at the Kinsey Institute. Her research examines racial and sexual hierarchies as they relate to policing, race, sexuality, and gender. She was selected as a Fulbright U.S. Global Scholar for 2020-2023.

Her past work has been selected for the 2020 Stanford/Harvard/Yale Junior Faculty Forum; Honorable Mention for the Law & Society John Hope Franklin Award; and the 2021 Equality Law Scholars’ Forum.

Professor Thusi is an award-winning writer and scholar, and she was recognized as a Top 40 Rising Young Lawyer by the American Bar Association in 2019 and a Top 40 Under 40 Emory University Alum in 2020.

As we celebrate women and their contributions to the global community, these resources will help you teach about how women make history during this month — and all year long.

Women’s History Month: A Book Every Day

Women’s History and Women’s Lives – Children and Young Adults

Interested in work, study, or professional development opportunities in the human rights field? Review the Human Rights Careers Newsletter: Human Rights Careers Digest: Jobs, Events, Masters and more.

Sponsored by Citizen for Global Solutions, Minnesota

Date: Thursday, March 17, 2022
Time: 7 pm-8:15 pm (Central Time – USA)
Where: Zoom (register at link below)
Cost: FREE and open to the public

Register here!

Guest Speaker: THOMAS HANSON is a retired U.S. foreign service officer and currently serves as the Alworth Institute Diplomat in residence. He meets each semester with UMD students interested in internships and careers with the US State Department. In his career with the State Department, Hanson’s foreign postings included East Germany, France, Norway, the Soviet Union, Sweden, and Georgia. He also assisted in opening new embassies in Mongolia and Estonia. Hanson has also worked on the Foreign Relations Committees of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. He was Director for NATO and European Affairs at the Atlantic Council of the United States in Washington, D.C. He serves on the St. Paul-Minneapolis Committee on Foreign Relations and as a lecturer/consultant for the Minnesota International Center. He is an occasional foreign affairs commentator on Minnesota Public Radio and instructor at many area colleges. Hanson graduated from the University of Minnesota with a B.A. in International Relations. He holds graduate degrees from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University; the Geneva Institute of Advanced International Studies in Switzerland; and the National School of Administration (ENA) in Paris, France.

In August of 2020, Human Rights Educators USA (HRE USA) lost one of its sustaining sources of inspiration and committed leadership – Kirby Edmonds. As a founding member of HRE USA, Kirby was instrumental in the establishment of HRE USA, directly shaping our mission statement, organizational structure, and most importantly our values framework and the consensus-based policy for decision-making. He served as Co-Chair of HRE USA for nearly a decade.

In honor of his legacy, HRE USA has created the Edmonds Summer Fellowship to support hands-on leadership experience in human rights education and further Kirby’s work to engage young people in building human rights-friendly schools and communities.

2022 Summer Fellowship Projects:

Project A: HRE USA Community Engagement and Development

Project B: Strengthening HRE USA Regional Representative Community

The deadline for the 2022 Edmonds Summer Fellowship is March 14, 2022 at 5 pm ET. Download Fellowship Application

free from Universal Human Rights Initiative

This 10-week series will meet once a week starting March 15 from 9am-11am PT

For more information, visit this page.

Registration is required at https://bit.ly/3I6MLHO

• Follow a 4-stage, proven dialogue model
• Learn how to go beyond right vs. wrong,
  judgement and assumptions
• See the effects of transformative justice
  conversations in real time
• Strengthen allyship and create new,
  interpersonal connections
• Explore your role in social justice