Holocaust, Assault on U.S. Capitol to Share Focus of Inaugural Human Rights Summit at UConn

The assault on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 and the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center in Kyiv, Ukraine are the twin centerpieces for the inaugural Dodd Human Rights Summit at The Dodd Center for Human Rights at the University of Connecticut in Storrs next month.   

The Summit, titled “Human Rights and the Global Assault on Democracy,” will bring together scholars, students, activists, policymakers, artists, and business leaders from around the world to examine the key human rights challenges of our time and generate new ideas to promote global justice and human dignity.

The Summit will begin on Wednesday, October 25 with the presentation of the 10th Thomas J. Dodd Prize in International Justice and Human Rights. This year, the prize will be awarded to the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center in Kyiv, Ukraine. Their center will serve as a physical place of memory, a museum, an educational archive, and a repository of scientific knowledge about the site’s historic atrocities from September 1941 and their modern-day impact. 

“We look forward to recognizing an entity fighting to maintain the truth of memory in the face of Russia's ongoing assault on Ukrainian sovereignty and identity,” said UConn officials.

Speakers will include Oleksandra Matviichuk, recipient of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize; Konstantin Usov, Deputy Mayor of the city of Kyiv, Ukraine; Rabbi Philip Lazowski, Rabbi Emeritus, Emanuel Synagogue, West Hartford; and Carol Anderson, New York Times best selling author, historian, and human rights expert focused on issues of race and racism in the United States

Sessions that day will focus on Global Democracy & Human Rights, Accountability for Atrocities in the War in Ukraine, and Legacies of Babyn Yar: Preserving Memory and Identity in Ukraine.

The Human Rights Summit at The Dodd Center for Human Rights brings together scholars, activists, policymakers, artists, and business leaders from across the world to examine the key human rights challenges of our time and generate new ideas to promote global justice and human dignity.

Friday, October 27 will center on U.S. domestic perspectives, beginning with the lead-off session that day, US Democracy Under Assault. 

Featured will be U.S. Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn, author of the recently published “Standing My Ground: A Capitol Police Officer's Fight for Accountability and Good Trouble After January 6th.”  Dunn “fought side by side with his fellow officers on January 6th, when democracy and their lives were threatened,” the book’s publisher has described.  The book is “the story of a man who refused to stay quiet when he learned that some of the men and women he had risked his life protecting, who knew him by name, would deny the horrors they faced. That’s when he chose to speak up…”

Joining Dunn on the panel will be Merle McGee, CEO and President, Everyday Democracy; Kerri J. Malloy, Assistant Professor of Native American and Indigenous Studies, San Jose State University; Jamil Dakwar, Director, ACLU Human Rights Program and Adjunct Lecturer at New York University and Hunter College; and Nicole Safar, Executive Director, Law Forward.

Former Connecticut Senator Christopher J. Dodd will moderate a session, “Toward a More Inclusive Democracy: A Fireside Chat with Carol Anderson and Ejim Dike.”   Anderson is Charles Howard Candler Professor of African American Studies, Emory University, and Dike is Senior Fellow, Human Rights Strategist, Western States Center, two of the nation's leading voices on human rights, race, justice, and equality.

That day, and the Summit, will conclude with a student-led dialogue centering issues of voting and voter participation at the local, state and national level, eveloped in collaboration with University of Connecticut’s Undergraduate Student Government, representatives of the Human Rights and Action Learning Community, and the Dodd Center’s Democracy and Dialogues Initiative.

Registration for the Summit is now open, and additional information is available at https://summit.humanrights.uconn.edu/2023-summit/   Participants will, according to the organizers, “examine the key threats to democracy and the critical role of international justice and rule of law.”

The Dodd Center for Human Rights “celebrates the life and legacy of Senator Thomas J. Dodd and Senator Christopher J. Dodd. Combined, the father and son served over 50 years in the United States House of Representatives and United States Senate representing Connecticut. The center honors their dedicated public service at home and abroad,” the Center’s website explains.