Bard Human Rights Project’s Anthony Lester Fellowships Featured on WHPC’s “Law You Should Know” Radio Show
Host Ken Landau talks with barrister Maya Lester, sister of Gideon Lester, Bard Fisher Center artistic director and senior curator at the Center for Human Rights and the Arts, about the work of their late father, human rights lawyer Anthony Lester, and the fellowship that’s being offered in his name through the Human Rights Project at Bard College.
Bard Human Rights Project’s Anthony Lester Fellowships Featured on WHPC’s “Law You Should Know” Radio Show
Host Ken Landau talks with barrister Maya Lester, sister of Gideon Lester, Bard Fisher Center artistic director and senior curator at the Center for Human Rights and the Arts at Bard, about the work of their late father, human rights lawyer Anthony Lester, and the fellowship that’s being offered in his name through the Human Rights Project at Bard College. The Lester Fellowships support lawyers and law students early in their careers to undertake a project of their choosing anywhere in the world that helps affect positive, practical change in relation to the rule of law and human rights, inspired by Lester’s experience. Two fellowships of $25,000 are being offered in its first year. The deadline to apply is March 28, 2024. “My personal hope is that if there is a great uptake and need for this kind of opportunity, and people are inspired by it, then we may be able to reach out and offer more fellowships and more opportunities in further years. We’d be really grateful for anyone who feels they can spread the word about this opportunity to any institutions or individuals who might be interested worldwide,” says Lester.
Learn more and apply for the Lester Fellowships here.
“The Enlightenment philosopher Baruch Spinoza almost died for his ideals one day in 1672,” writes Ian Buruma, Paul W. Williams Professor of Human Rights and Journalism, in an opinion piece for the New York Times. In the United States in 2024, “in a time of book-banning, intellectual intolerance, religious bigotry, and populist demagoguery, [Spinoza’s] radical advocacy of freedom still seems fresh and urgent,” Buruma argues.
Ian Buruma for New York Times Opinion: “The 17th-Century Heretic We Could Really Use Now”
“The Enlightenment philosopher Baruch Spinoza almost died for his ideals one day in 1672,” writes Ian Buruma, Paul W. Williams Professor of Human Rights and Journalism, in an opinion piece for the New York Times. Buruma writes that, during Spinoza’s lifetime, his arguments for reason and intellectual liberty “were considered so inflammatory that his authorship had to be disguised.” Now, in the United States in 2024, “in a time of book-banning, intellectual intolerance, religious bigotry, and populist demagoguery, his radical advocacy of freedom still seems fresh and urgent,” Buruma argues.
Bard College is proud to be included on the list of US colleges and universities that produced the most 2023–24 Fulbright students and scholars. Each year, the US Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs announces the top producing institutions for the Fulbright Program, the US government’s flagship international educational exchange program.
Bard College Named a Top Producer of Fulbright Students for 2023–24
Bard College is proud to be included on the list of U.S. colleges and universities that produced the most 2023–24 Fulbright students and scholars. Each year, the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs announces the top producing institutions for the Fulbright Program, the U.S. government’s flagship international educational exchange program. The Chronicle of Higher Education publishes the lists annually.
Seven graduates from Bard received Fulbright awards for academic year 2023–24. Getzamany “Many” Correa ’21, a Global and International Studies major, and Elias Ephron ’23, a joint major in Political Studies and Spanish Studies, will live in Spain as Fulbright English Teaching Assistants (ETAs). Biology major Macy Jenks ’23 will be an ETA in Taiwan. Eleanor Tappen ’23, a Spanish Studies major, will be an ETA in Mexico. Juliana Maitenaz ’22, who graduated with a BA in Global and International Studies and a BM in Classical Percussion Performance, was selected for an independent study–research Fulbright scholarship to Brazil. Bard Conservatory alumna Avery Morris ’18, who graduated with a BA in Mathematics and a BM in Violin Performance, won a Fulbright Study Research Award to Poland. Evan Tims ’19, who was a joint major in Written Arts and Human Rights with a focus on anthropology at Bard, received a Fulbright-Nehru independent study–research scholarship to India. Additionally, Adela Foo ’18 won a Fulbright Study Research Award to Turkey through Yale University, where she is a PhD candidate in art history.
“As an institution, Bard College is proud and honored to be included in the list of Top Producing Fulbright Institutions for 2023-2024,” said Molly J. Freitas, Ph.D., associate dean of studies and Fulbright advisor at Bard. “We believe that Fulbright's mission to promote and facilitate cross-cultural exchange and understanding through teaching and research is in perfect alignment with Bard's own institutional identity and goals. We wish to extend our congratulations to our newest Fulbright awardees and reiterate our gratitude to the faculty, staff, and community members who have supported these students during the Fulbright application process and throughout their time as Bard students.”
“Fulbright’s Top Producing Institutions represent the diversity of America’s higher education community. Dedicated administrators support students and scholars at these institutions to fulfill their potential and rise to address tomorrow’s global challenges. We congratulate them, and all the Fulbrighters who are making an impact the world over,” said Lee Satterfield, Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs.
Fulbright is a program of the U.S. Department of State, with funding provided by the U.S. Government. Participating governments and host institutions, corporations, and foundations around the world also provide direct and indirect support to the program.
Fulbright alumni work to make a positive impact on their communities, sectors, and the world and have included 41 heads of state or government, 62 Nobel Laureates, 89 Pulitzer Prize winners, 80 MacArthur Fellows, and countless leaders and changemakers who build mutual understanding between the people of the United State and the people of other countries.
Friday, April 26, 2024 Campus Center, Weis Cinema10:00 am – 7:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 With the recent upsurge in migration at the southern border, the United States may be witnessing the most significant challenge to migrant rights, including the right to asylum, and to the protection of workers in decades. The goal of this conference is to make space for a sober assessment of our present moment by shedding light on the acute and systemic challenges to our current immigration system, their relevant economic dimensions, and by highlighting the role of organizations working to protect the rights of all immigrants in these challenging times.
PROGRAM
10–11 am Coffee, sign-in, and tour of student research projects (Bertelsmann Campus Center lobby)
11:00 am – 12:30 pm Panel 1: How communities respond to the needs of newly arrived migrants
Laura Garcia, New York Immigration Coalition - Strengthening immigrant rights in the Hudson Valley Valerie Carlisle, Grannies Respond/Reunite Migrant Families - Volunteer response and mobilization Karin Anderson Ponzer, Legal Director, Neighbors Link - Community law practice on legal services for newly arrived migrants
An estimated 180,000 migrants have arrived in NYC and across the state since the spring of 2022, and state and local governments, community organizations, and volunteer groups have mobilized to meet their immediate needs. The panelists will reflect on the direct-response work they are engaged in, how they understand community needs to be evolving, how they navigate (mis)information flows and common frustrations, and talk about their strategies for marshaling community resources to help sustain their work amidst a public climate where immigration has become a flashpoint of political debate.
1:30–3:30 pm Panel 2: Are we in an asylum crisis?
Alex Aleinikoff, Dean and University Professor, New School for Social Research, former Deputy High Commissioner, UNHCR Shannon Lederer, Director of Immigration Policy, AFL-CIO Lenni Benson, Distinguished Chair in Immigration and Human Rights Law, New York Law School; Founder, Safe Passage Project
The upsurge at the border has focused attention on asylum, the right to remain for those who have a well-founded fear of persecution. With fewer alternatives available, asylum has become an option of first resort for legal advocates and migrants seeking protection and the opportunity to work after fleeing their countries. The number of applicants in the system has grown exponentially over the past decade and the processing times of nearly five years are increasingly theoretical. No one disputes that asylum is ill-suited to addressing the vast and diverse flow of immigrants arriving at a time of massive labor demand. There are increasing fears—or hopes, depending on the political position—that the current situation will spell the end of asylum as we know it. The participants in this panel have decades of experience in immigration law and policy, and they will explore the place of asylum in understanding and addressing the current situation as well as what has been overlooked or obscured by that focus.
4:00 pm: Screening of Borderland | The Line Within (109 mins.)
Followed by a panel discussion featuring filmmakers Pamela Yates, Paco de Onis, activist Kaxh Mura’l, and Joe Nevins, Dept. of Geography, Vassar College.
Borderland | The Line Within exposes the profitable business of immigration and its human cost while weaving together the stories of immigrant heroines and heroes resisting and showing a way forward.
This program is supported by the Consortium on Forced Migration, Displacement, and Education
About the Consortium on Forced Migration, Displacement, and Education: In early 2016, Vassar, Bard, Bennington, and Sarah Lawrence colleges founded the Consortium on Forced Migration, Displacement, and Education to explore what role institutions such as ours could play in addressing this development. Since then, the New School has joined our Consortium and we have partnered with the Council for European Studies. We are grateful to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for their generous support of our goals.
10:00 am – 7:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 Campus Center, Weis Cinema
5/02
Thursday
Thursday, May 2, 2024 Reem-Kayden Center Laszlo Z. Bito '60 Auditorium1:30 pm – 3:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 This panel on the terms "Anti-Semitism" and "Anti-Palestinian Racism" is part of the Spring 2024 common course Keywords for Our Times: Understanding Israel/Palestine and will be open to the Bard College community as a whole. The course critically explores the ongoing conflict in Israel/Palestine with a focus on contemporary Gaza, and the vocabularies we use to understand it. The course brings scholars from a range of disciplines together to help students understand the histories of and contestations around important concepts and ideas that define our contemporary moment, and to stimulate informed dialogue within our community. Participating in the panel on the terms "Anti-Semitism" and "Anti-Palestinian Racism" will be Ken Stern of Bard College & Radhika Saineth of Palestine Legal.
Kenneth S. Stern is the director of the Bard Center for the Study of Hate. He is an award-winning author and attorney, and was most recently executive director of the Justus & Karin Rosenberg Foundation. Before that he was director of the division on antisemitism and extremism at the American Jewish Committee, where he worked for 25 years. Stern is the author of numerous op-eds and book reviews, appearing in the New York Times, the Washington Post, USA Today, the Forward, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, and elsewhere. He most recently published The Conflict Over the Conflict: The Israel/Palestine Campus Debate (New Jewish Press, 2020), and previously published Loud Hawk: The United States vs. The American Indian Movement. Mr. Stern graduated from Bard College in 1975.
Radikha Sinath is a senior staff attorney at Palestine Legal, where she oversees the organization’s casework on free speech, censorship, and academic freedom. Prior to joining Palestine Legal, Radhika represented clients in individual and class action civil and constitutional rights cases involving discrimination, human rights abuses, and prison conditions at one of California’s most prestigious civil rights firms. Radhika has successfully litigated numerous state and federal class actions and other federal civil rights cases. Her writing has appeared in The Nation, Jacobin, and Literary Hub. Radhika is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law and the University of California, San Diego. She is based in Palestine Legal’s New York City office and is admitted to the California and New York state bars.
This event is cosponsored by the Politics Program, the Middle Eastern Studies Program, the Global and International Studies Program, the Human Rights Program, and the Center for Human Rights and the Arts.
1:30 pm – 3:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 Reem-Kayden Center Laszlo Z. Bito '60 Auditorium