HUMAN RIGHTS:
A User’s Manual for a Safe Campus
By Elissa-Beth Gross
Cradle through career, curriculum should highlight the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations in 1948. I can think of no better tool to build a safe campus than to teach students about their human rights and those of every one of their peers, family and community members, and teachers. In fact, human rights education should be mandatory to promote the personal freedoms essential to an intellectually stimulated, creative, and safe student body. Knowledge of human rights may hold the key to deterring acts of bullying, harassment, and intimidation.
Human rights doctrine demands inclusion and lays down protections for diverse populations, including women, children, LGBTQ, immigrants, and persons with disabilities. While human rights are central to democracy, they quickly evaporate when individuals put themselves before their neighbors and countrymen. Human rights are recognized under international law and understood as critical to peacekeeping. If not proactively defended, these rights are fleeting in our institutions and within political forums. The first Geneva Convention established the rights of individuals, combatants, and non-combatants during war, for the loss of human rights can be a precursor to travesties such as torture, human trafficking, and starvation.
Human rights will never be a stale topic as we see domestic violence rise and anti-Asian attacks grow along with the spread of COVID-19 in the United States. Inconsistent with the (equitable) right to health, discrimination impacts who gets tested, treated, and vaccinated, even who dies from coronavirus. The U.N. Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner provides education and engages with civil groups, businesses, governments, and institutions to broaden the human rights constituency. Nonprofit organizations, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, offer educational opportunities and investigate power abuse. Secure and respectful campuses begin with human rights education and engagement. The administration of justice depends on every American campus to participate in human rights advocacy.