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

UW Center for Human Rights Annual Report 2024-2025

People gather in a street outside. One person is speaking and in the foreground, someone is speaking into a headset interpreting into a different language.
Massage workers learn about Chinatown–International District working class and organizing history on a neighborhood tour led by Massage Parlor Outreach Project and CID Coalition. Photo credit/ MPOP.

December 3, 2025

Letter from the Director

Angelina smiles, sitting at her desk in her office

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

Most readers of this annual report already know it’s been a rough year for both higher education and human rights. Our Center for Human Rights sits at the nexus of these two fields, so we’ve been in the thick of it. While I don’t know what our work will look like in the years to come, I do know that what we do is more necessary than ever—and I hope you’ll agree after reading about our work this past year. 

As you see in these pages, our researchers are working on some of the most enduring challenges in our state, region, and world, many of which were inscribed in the state legislation that founded our center sixteen years ago. While none of these problems have easy answers, I’m inspired by the way our research teams are building new strategies for advancing the work in these times. This spring, as you’ll see on page 10, we welcomed a new initiative studying the nature and causes of gaps in the juvenile parole process and ways of mitigating inequities, thus expanding the positive impact of recent resentencing decisions in Washington state.

I’m excited to share an important victory made possible by our long-standing work gathering and analyzing U.S. government records relevant to the pursuit of justice for crimes against humanity committed during the 1980s in El Salvador: in June, for the first time in that country’s history, three members of the military high command were sentenced to prison for their role in the killings of civilians during the conflict. I’m honored to have drawn the materials for my testimony in that case from the hard work conducted by multiple generations of UW graduate and undergraduate students who toiled away in our center’s windowless FOIA office, always imagining this day could come even when it seemed unlikely. You can read more about that on page 12.

We continue to be blessed with brilliant students, who come to us today in larger numbers and with a greater sense of urgency than ever. I’m so grateful that with your support we were able to disburse $215,000 in support to students this past year. See page 4 for the details.

Earlier this year, we were informed that the College of Arts and Sciences was withdrawing support it has long provided for our center. (This came in the context of college-wide budget cuts, and was not something specifically targeting us or our work.) It makes the day to day feel a bit more uphill, but no one ever said human rights work was going to be easy. I’m proud of the work we do, and grateful to you, our community, for making it possible. 

La lucha continúa,

Angelina

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