Claiming Rights, Righting Wrongs: Educating Students for Human Rights

In the spirit of Gayatri Spivak (2004), whose article inspired the title of this lecture, educating for human rights requires helping our students to develop their knowledge, values, and skills so that they live their lives and professionally practice in ways that work to build a culture of human rights, in ways that enable their clients to claim their full human rights and to right the wrongs of human rights violations that they have experienced. For knowledge related to human rights, the first place to turn is the United Nations Human Rights Web page (2011) and the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (United Nations, 1948). The Universal Declaration is an aspirational document. It lays out the goals to which human rights work ought to aspire. Aspirational work is nurtured by inspiration, and so let’s begin with an inspiration— from Eleanor Roosevelt. She was the U.S. representative to the Drafting Committee for the declaration. At the 10th anniversary of the signing of that declaration, she asserted that the destiny of human rights is in the hands of all our citizens in all our communities: