Events 2024-2025

Spring 2025

January 29, 2025:
    "Student Protest and Freedom of Expression: UW-Madison and Beyond"
    5:00-7:00pm (including reception)
    Room 325/26, Pyle Center  
    Panel Discussion featuring: Professors Gay Seidman (UW-Madison), Steve Sanders (Indiana University), Howard Schweber (UW-
    Madison), Keith Woodward (UW-Madison) and Sabiya Ahamed (Palestine Legal)
    Sponsored by the Human Rights Program with support from WI Institute for Citizenship & Civil Dialogue

Summary: Last year, campus protests became a political flashpoint in the US. As students around the country staged protests against the Israel/Gaza conflict, Congress held hearings, police were deployed to shut down encampments, and university leaders were forced to step down. Reports of antisemitic incidents on campuses proliferated. Over the summer, universities prepared for the incoming year by holding disciplinary proceedings for students who had been involved in campus protests, increasing security personnel, and, as in the case of UW, enacting greater restrictions on campus speech. There have been significantly fewer protests this academic year, even as the conflict in the Middle East continues to take a brutal toll on the civilian population. This panel explores debates around dissent on US campuses, with a focus on the UW and its new rules on campus speech. The panel forms part of a series exploring dissent on campus, the Israel/Gaza conflict, and antisemitism and islamophobia in US universities.

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Fall 2024

October 14, 2024:
 "Ending Gender Apartheid: Lessons from Afghanistan," Annual Soffa lecture delivered by Professor Karima Bennoune
 4:00-5:30pm, Alumni Lounge, Pyle Center
 Reception to follow
 Free and open to the public.  For details, visit: https://law.wisc.edu/gls/hrp/soffa_lectures.html 

November 4 & 5, 2014

Screening of documentary, "Home is Somewhere Else" with one of its directors, Jorge Villalobos. This 2D feature “animentary,” or animated feature documentary, provides a window into the hearts and minds of ​​immigrant youth and their undocumented families. It features three personal stories about undocumented youth to highlight the complexities and challenges they face today. Voiced by the actual children and their families, Home Is Somewhere Else invites discussion about the need for a new US migratory model based on respect for human rights for all. 

November 4, 2024 at Marquee Theatre
6:30-6:45 PM: Film introduction by filmmakers
6:45-8:15 PM: Film Screening
8:15-8:30 PM: Q&A with Director Jorge Villalobos 

 November 5, 2024 at Marquee Theatre
10:30--12:00 PM: Film Screening for youth ages 11-17 from area school districts
12:00-12:30 PM: Activity for youth exploring the film's themes and the significance of storytelling
12:30-1:30 PM: Pizza party for the attendees

November 12, 2024:
"Political/Imprisonment: Freedom of Expression and the Carceral State Globally"
 5-7:00pm, Van Hise Hall 1418, dinner served
 Sponsed by HRP, Article 112 Project and Justie in Southeast Asia Lab

November 21, 2024:
 “International Migration in Comparative Perspective: The Current Status of Immigrants in India” 
 Professor Jayanth Krishnan, Maurer School of Law, Indiana University Bloomington, hosted by Professor Kathryn Hendley
 4:00pm, Lubar Commons (7200 Law), light refreshments will be served.
 Sponsored by the Global Legal Studies Center and HRP

December 2, 2024
“It’s a numbers game at the end of the day: How Bureaucrats Culturally Entrench Inequalities in Refugee Resettlement"
by Tobias Jake Watson
Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of California, San Diego
Part of the “Global Dialogues” series sponsored by IRIS NRC
11:00-12:15pm, 206 Ingraham Hall
With support from Department of Sociology, African Studies Program, Human Rights Program and Global Legal Studies Center.

Description:
According to formal discourse, refugee resettlement is “a life saving measure to ensure the protection of those most at risk of harm and whose lives often depend on it.” In practice, however, most spaces go to a small number of refugee groups and the institution is poorly responsive to individual needs. Drawing on a transnational ethnography of the U.S. resettlement system, this talk examines how policy administrators understand this disjuncture between discourse and practice. While recognizing that contemporary practices depart from norms of refugee rescue and equity, bureaucrats have developed a humanitarian ethic centered on maximizing the number of refugees resettled to meet and expand country quotas. This “numbers game” is framed as normatively positive, even as it works to produce and legitimize inequities in global resettlement. Watson demonstrates how this ethic works through a comparative study of resettlement imbalances between Congolese and Darfuri refugees living in Central and East Africa.

December 4, 2024:
 "Celebrating Human Rights Day: Flash Talks on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights"
Featuring: Ana Carolina Girard Teixeira Cazetta, Paula Monteiro Danese, Norah-Frida Tebid, Emma Bierley, Aranveer Litt, Kayla Buth &
 Alicen Rushevics
4:00pm, Lubar Commons (7200 Law), light refreshments will be served.
 Sponsored by HRP and GLS

December 6, 2024
 "Immigration and Empowerment: Rights, Community Response, and Care"
 featuring Dr Marla Ramirez, Erin Barbato, Matt Sablan and Luis Velasquez
 3:00-4:30pm, 19 Ingraham
 Multiple sponsors including Chican@ & Latin@ Studies & HRP