PRESS RELEASE
For immediate release
Contact: uwchr@uw.edu
(206) 685-3435
UW Center for Human Rights Honors WA State Attorney General Bob Ferguson
SEATTLE, May 5, 2017 – The University of Washington Center for Human Rights will honor state Attorney General Bob Ferguson at its annual spring celebration. Attorney General Ferguson will accept the inaugural UW Center for Human Rights Justice Award and deliver a speech on “Challenging Injustice Through the Courts” at the May 5 event in UW’s Kane Hall.
Attorney General Bob Ferguson was chosen as the first recipient of the University of Washington Center for Human Rights Justice Award in recognition of his contributions to the protection of human rights. In February 2017, a lawsuit by Ferguson’s office successfully blocked the Trump administration’s executive order banning travel to the U.S. by Syrian refugees and citizens from seven majority Muslim countries. Since 2013, Ferguson’s office has also championed the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in state and federal courts.
“As Attorney General, Bob Ferguson has worked tirelessly to protect and expand human and civil rights for all Washington State residents,” said University of Washington Center for Human Rights Director Angelina Snodgrass Godoy. “As our own Center expands its focus on Human Rights at Home, we are grateful for his vision and leadership.”
Attorney General Ferguson is not the only honoree at the Center’s spring celebration: five UW students will receive awards from the Center’s endowed funds, which support undergraduate and graduate students across the university with funding for research and direct action projects which advance human rights.
The University of Washington Center for Human Rights was established by an initiative of the Washington state legislature in 2009. Its flagship projects include “Unfinished Sentences,” which supports survivors seeking justice for war crimes committed during El Salvador’s civil war; and “Rethinking Punishment,” which researches criminal justice reform and alternatives to mass incarceration in Washington State. In 2015, the UW became the first university to sue the Central Intelligence Agency for failure to comply with a freedom of information request by the Center for Human Rights.
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