UICHR Timeline

• 

  April 1995

  1995

  In April 1995, with both the Universal Declaration of Human Rights' (UDHR) 50th anniversary and the new millennium approaching, campus and community members meet over the course of two days.  They produce the Iowa Declaration, setting out an agenda for the realization of human rights in the State of Iowa. One of the organizers, the Iowa Division of the United Nations, led by the indefatigable Dorothy Paul, will be critical to Global Focus’ and the subsequent UI Center for Human Rights’ success. Paul will play a central role in shoring up community support for the Center’s founding in 1999. Other participants, such the Stanley Foundation and the Iowa Law International and Comparative Legal Studies Program will be central to supporting the Global Focus, Human Rights ‘98 initiative as well as UICHR.

• 

  December 1996

  1996

  The University of Iowa will join other institutions and organizations across the world in planning activities to commemorate the 50^th anniversary of the UDHR.  Prompted by Burns H. Weston (Bessie Dutton Murray Distinguished Professor of Law and former Associate Dean for International and Comparative Legal Studies), Michael McNulty, Associate Provost and Dean of International Programs calls a meeting to begin planning for a campus-wide initiative.  International Programs will be a Global Focus key supporter. 

• February 1997

  1997

  The HR ’98 Advisory Committee, composed of twenty-one academic units, area non-profits, religious organizations, and the City of Iowa City, holds its first meeting. The committee reflects the synergistic ties between the university and community.  

   

  University leaders get fully behind efforts to bring Nobel Laureates to campus as part of Global Focus.  Weston announces that UI College of Law Dean William Hines has pledged Levitt Distinguished Speakers Endowment funds, approximately $75,000, to support bringing Nobel Laureates to campus. UI President, Mary Sue Coleman, and Ann Rhodes, VP for University Relations, offer to support in any way they can. 

• 

  March 1997

  Engaging students in the burgeoning, inter-disciplinary field of human rights becomes an early priority for the Global Focus initiative. Curricular initiatives begin to emerge. Faculty in political science, history, journalism, and geography will develop new departmental courses. Others will collaborate to create inter-disciplinary offerings. The Ethics Seminar (sponsored by College of Business Administration, International Programs, and the Project on Rhetoric of Inquiry) will call for proposals in honor of the official observance of the UDHR’s 50th anniversary. Global Studies will launch an exploration into creating a human rights concentration.  Early on, the College of Law’s Transnational Law and Contemporary Problems journal will also commit to examining the "UDHR at 50" in a symposium. Iowa Society of International Law and Affairs (now the International Law Society) will host the annual International Law Society Association at Iowa.  

• April 1997

  Units across campus explore coordinating programs in support of Global Focus: Human Rights ‘98. Stephen Foster, chair of the UI Cultural Affairs Council, calls on DEOs from various “Arts” departments to ensure that Global Focus includes a robust arts component.    

   

  Assoc. Provost Michael McNulty announces Global Focus, Human Rights ‘98 to wider campus community and renews calls for collaborative efforts.  

   

  Leaders across the political spectrum offer to leverage connections to promote UI as a hub of human rights activity around the UDHR’ 50^th anniversary.

   

  Senator Tom Harkin visits campus to speak about the responsibility to address child labor abuses during period of increased globalization.  Later, Harkin will help secure a visit by future Nobel Peace Prize Laureate John Hume.

   

  Representative Jim Leach indicates he can assist in bringing Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Rigoberta Menchú Tum to campus.

   

  HR ’98 Advisory Committee shares Human Rights Iowa City's Community Agenda and collaboration with Global Focus on a year-long celebration of the UDHR’s 50^th anniversary.

• 

  June 1997

  Global Focus taps into new internet technologies to expand their reach.  The VP for Research, David Skorton, provides initial funding to create a webpage that will feature a calendar of events and human rights action alerts alongside a call for the campus and community to get involved.

• August 1997

  Provost, Jon Whitmore, announces new UI human rights policy that includes “gender identity” as a protected class.  He writes, “It is the University’s hope that these amendments will lead to the elimination of structural and attitudinal barriers...and to the recognition of the value of all members of our community.” 

• 

  September 1997

  HR ’98 Advisory Committee confirms that they have secured two Nobel Laureates and will work to collaborate with campus-wide speaker programs, such as the University Lecture Committee, Ida Beam Scholars Lecture, and others to provide additional funding to support further visits by high-profile human rights artists, scholars, and activists.  

   

  Unveiling of Global Focus, Human Rights ’98 logo created by Professor of Graphic Design, Ab Gratama.    

• 

  October 1997

  Article in the Press Citizen highlights the need for human rights education. Weston indicates that there is “abundant evidence that the lessons of the Holocaust have not been learned…We need to have our ears and eyes opened.  Human rights issues are not just civil and political rights issues.  They are also economic, social, and cultural rights issues.  They span the spectrum of individual and group demands for human dignity and thus speak to all of us from all walks of life.  The aim of GFHR98 will be to deepen our understanding in these respects and hopefully also our commitment to the alleviation of human suffering involved…We hope that the 50th anniversary will be a chance for all of us in Iowa City and beyond to assess honestly and openly both the human rights successes that have been achieved at home and abroad and the neglect of the ideal,  I am convinced that all of us will be better citizens for it.”

• December 1997

  HR ’98 Advisory Committee draws on Division of Sponsored Programs' expertise to generate supportive funds from national and local organizations.   

   

  City-wide “Human Rights Year” is launched with monthly events to commemorate the 50^th anniversary of the UDHR.

• 

  March 1998

  1998

  Demonstrating community support, the Press Citizen provides nearly $3000 free column space to advertise Global Focus HR ’98. 

   

  Weston informs UI leadership that on behalf of Global Focus, Human Rights ’98, Marvin Bell, Flannery O’ Connor Professor of Letters at the UI Writer’s Workshop, has written a poem, “The Dead Have Nothing to Lose by Telling the Truth”. The poem will be published in the Iowa Review (1998 v. 28.2).

• July 1998

  City of Iowa City commits $2,000 to Global Focus, particularly in support of classroom visits to Iowa City schools by New York Times photojournalist Dith Pran, featured in the award-winning film about the Khmer-Rouge's genocidal regime, The Killing Fields.   

  National recognition of the scope and importance of Global Focus is confirmed by United States Institute for Peace grant of $30,000 to support lecture series and events. 

• 

  September 1998

  Global Focus draws global attention.  HR ‘98 webmaster, Brett Lorenzen, reports on website traffic, citing nearly 300 visitors per day.  In the previous August alone, the site had hits from twenty-two countries and from organizations ranging from the US Senate, to Nike, to the Office of the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights.

  Global Focus launches. 

  HR ’98 Advisory Committee member Gina McGee leads effort to record the lecture series and create a documentary about human rights defenders, "Human Rights, Why Iowa?"

  Chinese dissident Wei Jingsheng launches the speaker series with talk on "China and Its Role in the 21st Century." 

  Joan Baez launches Global Focus with a Hancher Performance. The Hancher playbill offers pages of support to the Global Focus initiative, including the text of the UDHR, an article by Weston, a calendar of events, and Marvin Bell’s poem. 

  Interactive art exhibit by artist Hans Breder’s “The Nazi-Loop” presented in the former Randall’s Market in Coralville. 

• 

  October 1998

  “On the Threshold of the 21^st Century,” lecture by Elie Wiesel is held at Hancher Auditorium. The Holocaust survivor, award-winning author, and 1986 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, speaks to a standing-room only crowd at Hancher Auditorium. 

  “Human Rights, Human Wrongs”  poetry reading is held in Shambaugh Auditorium. Organized by Pulitzer Prize winning poet, Jorie Graham, it features Iowa Writers’ Workshop participants and visiting poets.  

• 

  November 1998

  “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights” lecture by Rigoberta Menchú Tum is held in Macbride Hall.  She is the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, advisor to UNESCO Director General, and author of I, Rigoberta Menchu, An Indian Woman in Guatemala.* 

  “The Struggle for Human Rights: The Broken Silence of Iowa Immigrants” conference held in conjunction with Menchú’s visit. Sponsored by the Iowa Division of the United Nations Associations, the Stanley Foundation, and Global Focus ‘98.   

  HR ’98 Advisory Committee begins early conversations about a creating “something” more permanent and on-going in the human rights field at UI once Global Focus is concluded.

   

  ^{* Shortly after Menchú’s visit, controversy erupts over the use of testimony not her own. Scholars of indigenous studies and Guatemala subsequently supported Menchú, arguing that the stories were nonetheless Mayan peasants’ experiences.} 

• 

  December 1998

  City of Iowa City mayor, Ernest W. Lehman, issues a Proclamation declaring Iowa City, “a human rights community.”  

  A coalition of Global Focus ‘98 and city organizations host a Human Rights Day (December 10) Town Hall to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They receive national sponsorship from the Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt Institute.  

  The College of Law’s Iowa Advocate features Global Focus ’98. 

• 

  February 1999

  1999

  “Universal Human Rights,” lecture by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, held at Carver Hawkeye. Tutu is introduced by current UICHR director, Dean Adrien Wing, and speaks to a large crowd. The event concludes with a Congo line of attendees led by Tutu that snakes throughout the arena.

• March 1999

  UI Libraries hosts Fifty Years of Hope: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  

• 

  April 1999

  “Human Rights: Democracy and the Rule of Law in the Asia Pacific Region,” lecture by José Ramos-Horta.  He is the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and Representative to the United Nations for the East Timorese independence movement held in Buchanan Auditorium.  

  2-day “Global Health, Social Justice, and Human Rights” conference spearheaded by Maureen McCue, M.D., Ph.D. and held in conjunction with Allen Keller, M.D. lecture, "Caring for Survivors of Torture: Treating the Person and the Community."

  City of Iowa City, Iowa Division of the United Nations Association, and Global Focus ’98 sponsor a grade 9-12 human rights poetry/essay contest with a $500 cash prize.   

  John Hume scheduled to be the fifth Nobel Peace Prize Laureate (1998) to visit but he cancels last minute.  He remains in Northern Ireland for urgent talks to break the stalemate in implementing the previous year’s Good Friday Accords. He will visit campus in April 2000.

• 

  May 1999

  Daily Iowan’s, “Nobel Year ends with Noble Plan” signals the momentum Global Focus has built towards creating a permanent campus entity dedicated to human rights programming, education, and scholarship. 

  Weston shares with Provost Whitmore that the former HR ’98 Advisory Committee was “unanimous in wanting a permanent human rights presence on campus as a legacy of this past banner HR ’98 year.”  Weston indicates that he, Paul Retish (Education), Kenneth Starck (Journalism), and Rex Honey (Geography) form the nucleus of a new committee guiding the Center for Human Rights. Weston declares that the Center already has a home “in the form of a desk” in the Global Studies Program office located in the International Center.  Eventually, Weston suggests, the Center would be guided by a university-wide advisory committee.  Weston proceeds to share the functions contemplated for the new Center: 

  - research, writing, and faculty seminars

  - university curricular development as well as K-12 educational support

  - the advancement of human rights through the arts

  - a speakers’ program

  - hosting conferences and symposia

  - ongoing collaborations with the city and civic organizations

  - providing intellectual asylum

  - annual human rights prizes 

  This, he proposes, could be done with modest university support.   

• 

  June 1999

  Weston, Retish, Honey, and Starck take the case for a university supported Center to the press. 

• 

  August 1999

  At the start of the new semester, the Press Citizen announces the establishment of the UI Center for Human Rights. Founders envision UI as a place of refuge for those seeking intellectual asylum from threats to academic freedom.

• 

  September 1999

  Political dignitaries, Governor Tom Vilsack, Senator Tom Harkin, Representative James Leach, and former Iowa Senator Dick Clark join as honorary member of the new UICHR board of directors.