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Center for Human Rights, Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington

UW Center for Human Rights Annual Report 2023-2024

November 12, 2024

Letter from the Director

Angelina Snodgrass Godoy, director of the University of Washington Center for Human Rights

Dear Friends,

I’d like to think of this annual report as something like a time capsule. It recounts the activities our Center for Human Rights conducted in our fifteenth year. Having helmed our center since those early days when our existence was a bit more, shall we say, aspirational than actual, it’s sometimes hard to believe the path we’ve taken to get here.

We were founded by the Washington State legislature in the 2008–2009 season, and we are still the only university-based human rights center in the nation with a mission inscribed in state law. That law mandates that we work in partnership with those on the frontlines of human rights struggles, here at home or anywhere in the world, and that we harness the energies of UW students and scholars to support real-world movements for change. The law, and the unique mission it contains, was achieved through the deployment of immense good will and political savvy by the late Peter Jackson, who championed our cause in Olympia and bolstered my own faith we could change the world armed only with big dreams and an unfunded mandate.

It turns out he was right! In preparing for our fifteenth anniversary celebration this May, we added up the support we’ve provided to students since our creation, and were stunned to discover it totaled over $1.8 million dollars culled from grants, community support, and countless donations small and large. The effects of this support have rippled across our campus, contributing to the careers of students pursuing BA, MA, and PhD degrees in fields as diverse as international studies, marine and environmental affairs, law, political science, public health, anthropology, education, and informatics. And these students, in turn, have helped shape human rights outcomes in locations from Seattle’s International District and the Skagit Valley to far-flung sites including the Philippines, Colombia, Bangladesh, and Kenya.

Some students have received UWCHR grants in support of independent projects associated with their degree programs. Others have received funds as compensation for their involvement in UWCHR’s own research partnerships, some of which are showcased within these pages. On pages 6 through 9, you can see the students in this year’s group—an impressive bunch, indeed.

Of course, as important as it is to find joy and satisfaction in our work, in the field of human rights there’s always something dissonant about adopting a celebratory tone when there is so much urgent work that remains to be done. These are terrible, fractious, painful times for those who believe in human rights; the very notion that inviolable principles should limit the actions of states is being openly and unabashedly violated by multiple governments, including our own.  

At the UW Center for Human Rights, if we’re to live up to the challenge inscribed in our founding legislation, we truly have our work cut out for us. So that’s why I invite you to consider these pages as a time capsule: they illustrate the burgeoning potential of our work, but it’s just a single snapshot of where we’re at now in our path toward broader transformation. Looking to the future, I hope that our center will continue to generate opportunities for hands-on UW student, faculty, and staff engagement with the most challenging questions faced by our world, and that perhaps in another fifteen years, we’ll marvel anew at how far we’ve come.

Angelina Snodgrass Godoy

Helen H. Jackson Chair in Human Rights
Director, Center for Human Rights
Professor of International Studies and Law, Societies, and Justice

Inside this Issue