May 1 March Aimed at Unity With Immigrants

The Day of Resistance/Keep Families Together March, 5:30 p.m. May 1 at the McLean County Historical Museum, marks a day of solidarity with immigrants and their families aimed at resisting human rights abuses, racism, and oppression.

The event will be hosted by the Immigrant & Refugee Support Network of Central Illinois, Illinois People's Action, and YWCA McLean County.

"Most of us never have to think about what our children would do if they arrived home from school and we weren’t there — just vanishing from their lives," event organizers state. "But that is the reality for some members of our community. Just last year, 53 people were transferred to immigration custody directly from our county jail and many more have been torn apart by deportation."

The new administration’s immigration policies are placing families under increasing threat of being "devastated by an unjust immigration system, and immigrants in our community are living in constant fear," they report. "As a community, we must stand up with and for our neighbors and take action to ensure immigrant families are protected in McLean County. March with us for justice, dignity and freedom for all!"
 

IWU Speaker Examines Gender Segregation

Author and journalist Jenny Nordberg will speak Wednesday at the President’s Convocation at Illinois Wesleyan University. Nordberg is the author of The Underground Girls of Kabul , which was selected for the University’s Summer Reading Program.

Nordberg’s book is based on her extensive research and reporting inside a war zone on the practice of “bacha posh” – how girls grow up disguised as boys in gender-segregated Afghanistan. In 2010, Nordberg broke the story to a global audience in her work published in The New York Times and The International Herald Tribune. The practice of "bacha posh," which had never been previously documented, offers new and previously unknown details about Afghanistan and the inner workings of the deeply conservative society. Nordberg’s book raises new and profound questions about gender in children and teens, nature versus nurture, religion, sexuality, and what roles women play during war. The book has won numerous awards, including the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize and a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2014. Nordberg has also developed the website bachaposh.com as an online resource for girls who have grown up as boys due to segregation.

Nordberg is an award-winning journalist and foreign correspondent, columnist and television producer. Together with The New York Times’ investigative unit, she worked on projects such as the examination of the American freight railroad system, a series that won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting.

Also with the Times, she worked on a project on U.S. efforts at exporting democracy to Haiti. She has produced and written several documentaries for American television, and she is also a member of the first investigative team at Swedish Broadcasting’s national radio division, where she supervised projects on terrorism and politics. She has won awards from Investigative Reporters and Editors and the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights. Nordberg holds a B.A.in law and journalism from Stockholm University, and an M.A. from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.

The President’s Convocation, which begins at 11 a.m. in Presser Hall’s Westbrook Auditorium (1210 N. Park St., Bloomington), traditionally opens the academic year at Illinois Wesleyan. Nordberg’s address is free and open to the public. She will also sign copies of the book at 1 p.m. Sept. 14 in the Memorial Center Young Main Lounge.

Capitol Forum to Offer Global Perspective on Human Rights

ISU's Bone Student Center will host the April 14 Illinois Capitol Forum on America's Future, a year-long civic education program for Illinois high school students promoting "informed discussion about and active participation in human-rights policy issues."

Capitol Forum supports teachers in their classrooms and focuses on human rights concerns worldwide. Collaboration with Illinois State University's History Department allows teachers and students opportunity to benefit from the resources and campus of the University. Illinois Humanities invites high schools – public and private, in upstate and downstate Illinois – to apply for the program.

This year's local participants include Bloomington High School Megan Bozarth and Normal Community High School's Kelly Keogh, as well as ISU Coordinator Richard Hughes.

Keynoting the event will be ISU history Prof. Issam Nassar, who will address the current situation in Syria. Follow-up sessions will address civil rights, military intervention for human rights, sexual exploitation, children's and health rights, and international justice. A series of human rights simulations will complete the day's activities.

IWU Human Rights Research Workshop Feb. 26-27

The Center for Human Rights and Social Justice at Illinois Wesleyan will sponsor its fourth annual Human Rights Undergraduate Research Workshop on Feb. 26-27, 2016.

The theme for the workshop is Inequality and Inequity - emphasizing the economic, social, and political aspects of those issues. Undergraduate students from liberal arts institutions across the country come together for two days, presenting their independent research that relates to this year’s theme.

Students who are in the process of investigating topics within inequality and inequity are encouraged to apply and participate in this program. Research projects do not need to be completed by any means. The research is well structured for student in the process of research to share their findings, self-critique, and receive constructive feedback from peers and faculty mentorship to help create a worthy end product. 

A keynote speaker will be announced in the next month. Previous attendees include students and faculty from Luther, Beloit, Macalester, Grinnell, Vassar, Albion and George Mason University. Previous speakers include Martha Nussbaum (University of Chicago), Jon Ebel (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign), Alfred Babo (Smith College), John Wilson (AAUP) and Semahagn Gashu Abebe (University of Connecticut).

Students Write for Rights of Victims Worldwide

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The Illinois Wesleyan University campus chapter of Amnesty International recently organized a Write for Rights event. By the end of the evening, students — joined by a few faculty and administrators — wrote more than 100 letters on behalf of people who they believe are wrongfully imprisoned or being denied their rights.

“What we hope to accomplish is to add our voices to those around the world in this global Amnesty International event,” said Emily Haas, a junior who is co-president of the IWU chaper.

The event is part of a commemoration of Human Rights Day, marked each year on Dec. 10, the anniversary of the U.N. General Assembly adopting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. That falls in the middle of IWU's final exams, so the campus campaign took place a week early.

Letting authorities know “we're watching what they're doing” can lead to improved conditions for prisoners, said IWU senior Nicole Jovicevic of Des Plaines, but “the ultimate goal is their freedom.”

Jovicevic, a regional student activist coordinator for Amnesty International-Illinois, will graduate this month with a bachelor's degree in political science. She has been involved since her freshman year in the international organization that describes itself as “a global movement of people fighting injustice and promoting human rights.”

Amnesty International developed profiles of 12 people for this year's Write for Rights campaign and the IWU chapter chose to focus on four cases:

• An inmate in Louisiana who has been in prison for 40 years and whose release is being fought by the state's attorney general although his conviction on a charge of murdering a guard has been overturned.
• A woman in Syria who was taken into custody, along with her six children, by government forces in 2013 and hasn't been heard from since.
• A student leader in Myanmar who was among more than 100 students arrested earlier this year at a march against a law limiting academic freedom. She remains imprisoned.
• Girls as young as 11 forced into marriages in Burkina Faso, even though the nation's constitution forbids such marriages.

In addition to letters directed to government officials, letters also were written to the imprisoned individuals, or those working on their behalfs, to show support and let them know others are thinking of them.

Irv: IWU Center Keys In on Social Justice

Professor Irving Epstein

The Illinois Wesleyan University Center for Human Rights and Social Justice was established three years ago in an effort to bring our college community together to do research, teaching, and advocacy work about human rights and social justice issues.

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The Center itself serves as the home for a number of student curricular programs, has provided summer internships for students, and has sponsored talks and events by leading figures including philosopher Martha Nussbaum, producer Anthony Arnove, Pakistani journalist and activist Rafia Zakariah, director and academy award nominated screenwriter John Sayles and producer Maggie Renzi, and actor and author Jesse Eisenberg. During the fall, local activist and professor Mary Campbell gave an invited lecture about the history and operations ofthe Labryinth Outreaches to Women program and author/activist James Kilgore of the University of Illinois, spoke about his new book,  Winning the Battle Against Mass Incarceration.  

The Center also co-sponsored a teach-in focusing upon the Syrian refugee crisis.

Our students have interned with human rights organizations including the Constitutional Rights Foundation-Chicago, the Scholars at Risk Network in New York, and the Advocates for Human Rights organization in Minneapolis. On campus, we also house a Peace Fellows Program, a Scholars at Risk Advocacy seminar, and Undergraduate Workshops.

Participants in the Peace Fellows program take a few classes, pursue an internship either in the U.S. or overseas, and complete independent research project related to human rights issues. One of our Peace Fellows is currently investigating housing issues in the west side of Bloomington. Others have completed work examining various human rights concerns locally, nationally, and globally. Our Peace Fellows have also played an important role in participating and organizing panels for our Martin Luther King Day teach-in, an annual event at Illinois Wesleyan.

Students in our Scholars at Risk Advocacy seminar adopt the case of a scholar, student, or teacher who has been unfairly imprisoned for her/his views, research the case and examine national and international law violations along with the conditions of incarceration, and advocate for her/his release after presenting the file to national and international political and legal bodies such as the UN, State Department, Congressional offices, etc. They currently are monitoring the case of author Domingos Jose Joao de la Cruz, a scholar who is currently on trial in Angola for his advocacy of civil liberties and freedom of expression,

We also host an undergraduate human rights workshop where students and faculty together explore different dimensions of human rights issues in large and small groups, and an Undergraduate Human Rights Research Workshop, where we invite students from other liberal arts colleges to come and together share their ideas as they work to produce a finished paper or research project. The topic of this year’s research workshop, to be held on February 26-27 is “Inequality and Inequity.” 

As the Center continues to evolve, we hope to create a strong relationship with Not in Our Town and offer our support for its many important initiatives. For further information about the IWU Center for Human Rights and Social Justice, feel free to visit our webpage at http://www.iwu.edu/human-rights, on facebook at: Human Rights IWU or on twitter at: https://twitter.com/HumanRightsIWU.

IWU Commemorates Paris/Beirut Tragedies; Normal Vigil Planned Tonight

Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington Wednesday hosted a special event spurred by tragedy.

The inclusive chapel service housed several faiths, allowing reflection on last week's attacks in Paris and Beirut.

A gathering of peace is how organizers billed this service; a gathering that included people of all generations and faiths.

A mix of the campus community and the public sat quietly in the chapel as organizers discussed the sheer number of people killed by the terrorists.

"You know, in a time like this, it's nice to be able to express how you feel about something to a group when it's especially about peace," said Nicole Chlebek, a student at Illinois Wesleyan University.

There is also a Vigil for Peace and Human Rights scheduled for 6:30 p.m. at Uptown Circle in Normal.

"Our speakers have connections to: Jordan, France, India, Turkey, and other countries whose people have recently been attacked," organizer Bob Broad explained. "Other groups who will be represented include our local (B-N) Jewish, Muslim, Christian, and non-religious communities. A student peace activist and a peace educator will share brief thoughts. There will be some poetry and music appropriate to the occasion and a minute of silence to recognize and honor the suffering of those who have experienced violence."

To honor the victims, IWU guests lit candles in remembrance.

"And In remembering them, also talk about the deep reservoirs of peace and hope and justice that exist in our religious and ethical traditions," said Elyse Nelson Winger, the chaplain at Illinois Wesleyan University.

Eight different religions were acknowledged during the ceremony and students say that cooperation is key moving forward.

"Emphasize how each of those have something to say about peace and humanity and kind of this shared community that we all have as humans," said Carly Floyd, a student at Illinois Wesleyan University.

Organizers say their goal was to remind people that love is stronger than hate.