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This is beautiful and an overwhelming honor to receive the M.
Shanara Gilbert Human Rights Award from SALT. When Sylvia
Law congratulated me, I was sure she had the wrong person. Then
Jane Dokart called, and, realizing it was really me, I was stunned.
While none of us do what we do for awards, I remained amazed
and moved—and I admit it—grateful and proud. This is a huge
honor from an organization to which I have contributed little and
for which I have immense regard. I receive this award not simply
as a recognition of my work but also that of thousands of women
who have suffered and survived heretofore unrecognized violations
and are transforming human rights in theory and thereby changing
conditions and opening possibilities for women on the ground.
I need to say something about the over-the-top introductions by
two extraordinary women and beloved friends, Ann Cammett and
Charlotte Bunch. First let me say, I am relieved that they were
able to roast me a bit. But their tributes I take as the deepest of
honors from different aspects of what I consider my human rights
practice: my pedagogical role as law professor and my activist role
as advocate for women’s human rights, among others. Anni was
an amazing student at CUNY whom I first encountered in my first
year required section of Law & Family Relations and later
commandeered into being my teaching assistant. Anni may credit
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me with being one of her mentors, but she was my co-teacher from
the first discussion in that first-year class. And you know what a
relief it is to have a student who sees and articulates the issues so
clearly and accessibly. I knew she’d be a brilliant prof some day
though I encouraged her to practice first. Having just finished her
first semester to well-deserved acclaim at UNLV, I know that Ann
Cammett will be an amazing mentor, teacher, activist and scholar
and will be shaping the capacity of the ―next generation‖ of both
teachers and students to realize new and unimagined goals.
Charlotte Bunch is a national and international treasure. Charlotte
has a long history as a brilliant innovator of progressive ideas and
movements from publication of the Furies, the first lesbian
newspaper in the early 1970s and the magazine Quest which
published lesbian-, Marxist- and radical- feminist theory and
strategy from the pens of activists. After a decade of networking
with women’s groups, she launched the Center for Women’s
Global Leadership at Douglass College, Rutgers University and
was hired as its director and a tenured professor without what
universities call scholarship today. There she published her
ground-breaking article reconceptualizing from a gender
perspective the then utterly androcentric body of human rights.
And putting theory into practice, she created and facilitated
women’s leadership institutes where feminist activists from around
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the world came together to forge the direction and tactics of what
quickly emerged as the global women’s human rights movement.
Through her thoughtful guidance and strategic brilliance, Charlotte
facilitated the birth and nurtured this global movement for over 15
years. Charlotte, along with her partner Roxana, and Ros
Petchesky,another beloved friend and brilliant feminist political
theorist and activist, who is also here this evening, welcomed me
into this movement and opened a number of paths. And thus, all
Charlotte’s work and that of thousands of women globally made
possible everything that I am credited for in this award.
I can’t go on without thanking everyone who made this evening
and award possible--the SALT Board and the membership, Jane
Dolkart who nominated me and helped me prepare in so many
ways for tonight. And, not the least, the amazing Hazel Weiser,
and everyone who assisted her, for the tireless work and generous
spirit that made this beautiful evening possible and who brings to
SALT vision, energy, warmth and flawless efficiency. And,
through our email exchanges it has been and is tonight a delight to
share the honors this evening with this year’s Great Teacher, Steve
Weiser.
***
I want to start on a personal note. I think many of us have trouble
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accepting recognition and, despite everything I have said, I am
definitely in that crowd. But when I was diagnosed with cancer and
flattened by chemotherapy, I had a life-changing experience and
time to process it. So many people, friends, colleagues, and people
I had almost lost touch with or barely knew contacted me-- and the
message in different ways was "you've done so much for others-now you must turn that energy on healing yourself because we
need you in this world." And while everyone tonight has politely
spoken of my persistence, one of my favorite messages was--"you
are so stubborn, you will unquestionably beat this one.‖
I was overwhelmed and nourished by this support. To be needed
in this world; to be cared for and assisted in different ways by a
huge network, organized by Anni and Charlotte and several other
amazing feminist organizers; and to have the time to catch up and
ruminate with friends who signed up to be with me constantly
through the toughest months—all this buoyed my spirit, my
resolve to endure, and brought, paradoxically, a new and persistent
calm into my life.
So I began to think about the relationship between recognition and
stress. Of course we have stress—both good and bad stress—
because as activists and professors we are passionately engaged in
social justice teaching and work—rule of law, human rights, our
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endangered planet, sexual and gender violence, racism, poverty,
and the killing fields such as in Gaza, Darfur, and too many places
to mention. To do this work is a privilege, at the same time as it is
constantly demanding, often disappointing, sometimes devastating
and occasionally thrilling or at least hopeful.
But there another negative side to stress that flows from the culture
we live in and perpetuate: our incredibly fast-paced lives, our
professional penchant for highly critical judgment; our experience
of discrimination and marginalization, overt and subtle; and, yes,
competition, --all these impede our recognition of the efforts and
contributions of others as well as undermine our security and joy in
what we do. The result, for me and, I believe from my
conversations, for many of us, is that what we do or try is rarely
good enough in the real or imagined eyes of others-- or in our own.
So this is a plea for giving and accepting recognition of our own
and others' efforts and humanity on a day-to-day basis at the same
time as we share honest and supportive critiques. None of us want
to admit that we need this, but we do, and being forced to take in
the appreciation of others for my utterly imperfect self opened my
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heart as well as enhanced my capacity to give it back and send it
round. Recognition is the exchange of love.
***
In my work-life as an activist prof, there have been two
fundamental sources of recognition: the first is from students who
give it most importantly in how they grow and create their
journeys rather than in what they say – I am moved both by what
Anni Cammett has said and by the great work she is doing; Hazel,
whose teaching has helped hundreds do a better job and who now
leads SALT, was a student in the women and law course that Liz
Schneider and I taught at Brooklyn Law School; and so many
grads are using human rights in both domestic and international
contexts, including the two wonderful IWHR interns-- former and
actual —Ruth Cusick and Jayna Turchek--who are here tonight.
The second crucial source of recognition is from peers. I have
such enormous respect for SALT, for the energy that has gone into
creating, and goes into maintaining, this organization; its critical
goals and work, the collective spirit it fosters and work it makes
possible, and the identity and protection as progessive law teachers
that it provides for all of us. So I cannot fully express how
nourished I am by your trust and by being in the company of those
you have recognized through this Award. And it is also not a small
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thing that SALT, while not a principally feminist organization, is
recognizing the work of thousands of women here and abroad who
begun long deep intersectional and gender inclusive feminist
revolutions.
***
There is another important dimension to this award that touches me
deeply —and that is SALT's ongoing recognition of Shanara
Gilbert . Shanara was our beloved colleague at CUNY, who lived
above me for about 4 years and was brutally cut down, along with
Haywood Burns in a horrible accident in Johannesburg, South
Africa the day after they had celebrated the adoption of the new
South African Constitution.
While Haywood’s magnificence is well-known, Shanara’s was less
so. Shanara, directed our Defender Clinic. She was fierce in her
dedication to criminal defense and farsighted in her understanding
that human rights was critical to both pedagogy and advocacy. She
was, for example, one of the first people to work with South
Africans on developing clinical legal education just now
developing into a global movement.
About a year before she died, Shanara received tenure from CUNY
-- and I watched as her life and spirit opened further as she
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experienced that recognition and a new security. Symbolic for me,- amid all her creative, demanding and loving work, --was the
garden of chrysanthemums that she planted in her new home—
falling all over each other as if they couldn't stop growing, and
coloring the yard like a Monet painting.
Losing Shanara was losing a great and passionate advocate for
human rights and social justice: SALT’s remembering of her
annually is a gift to all of us.
***
All that said, it is also true that awards are a form of theft. We all
know it takes not only a good dose of serendipity, but also a village
and even a global movement—at least in the field of social justice
and women's rights—to make change. So I want to spend a few of
my minutes recognizing the institutions and some of people who
made my life and work possible.
My parents, who made me argue for every damned bit of freedom I
sought and a few amazing teachers and profs who opened my mind
and built my confidence.
The Center for Constitutional Rights where I able cut my teeth as a
litigator with the support of some of the greatest progressive
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lawyers of the previous generation—Arthur Kinoy, Mort Stavis
and through cooperation, Katie Roraback; where I was able to do
early feminist work with Nancy Stearns, and Liz Schneider, and
where I worked with others outside including the activist feminist
law prof Sylvia Law and Marxist feminist scholar-activist Ros
Petchesky, both of whom are here tonight.
CCR was where I did early human rights work with Peter Weiss
whose faith in human rights made the Filartiga case possible.
CCR was where I learned that its in our collective hands to make
law a tool of social justice; that law succeeds in making
progressive change where it serves progressive movements and
thus we must be peoples' lawyers; and that we must do what needs
to be done whether or not it is popular, demonized, or considered
utterly impracticable or downright insane.
On June 30, 1980, the two most important cases of my life were
decided and they defined my subsequent path: Harris v. McRae,
the Medicaid abortion challenge against the Hyde Amendment,
lost in the Supreme Court 5:4; and then, 5 hours later, the Second
Circuit decided Filartiga v. Pena-Irala which recognized the right
of non-citizens to sue for human rights violations in federal court
under the Alien Tort Claims Act and which Harold Koh has called
the Brown v. Board of Education of international human rights.
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McRae,-- decided when the reproductive rights movement was
waning and the religious right began the growth spurt we suffer
from today, -- slammed the door on the notion that poor women
dependent upon state support have constitutional rights as well as
on the idea that religious beliefs shouldn’t be imposed through law.
And Filartiga,-- decided as the anti-torture movement was
growing and US support for the violent dictatorships that plagued
the hemisphere was losing cache -- opened the door to the notion
that international human rights can both have teeth and evolve.
Together they led me to international human rights which treats a
right—even the political and civil rights-- as nullified when the
State does not protect them, or provide the means to exercise them.
And,-- beyond that,-- the universal framework of human rights
recognizes as a fundamental responsibility of states to ensure each
individual basic economic and social needs as rights.
Feminist movements saved me twice: first, in the early 1970's,
second wave feminism saved me from --what seemed to me,-- I do
not speak for others! --the dreadful life expected of me as a
woman; gave me, through our brilliant activist scholars and gutsy,
determined activists, the tools of both deconstruction and
reconstruction; and made possible a joyfilled life as a feminist
advocate and as a lesbian;
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Second, in the early 90's the courageous, brilliant, visionary
feminists of the global women's human rights movement
broadened my vision; gave me the comfort of finally being in a
holistic movement that linked autonomy, equality, intersectionality
and material conditions; and restored my hope, broken for about a
decade by the bitter loss of McRae, in the potential of
transformative feminist advocacy.
The energy of women’s movements was captured by the great
African-American poet philosopher Audre Lorde in her famous
demand that you can read in Ros Petchesky’s ad in tonight’s
journal and which continues to inspire:
When I speak of the erotic, then, I speak of it as an assertion
of the lifeforce of women; of that creative energy
empowered, the knowledge and use of which we are now
reclaiming in our language, our history, our dancing, our
loving, our work, our lives.
And finally, the 25 precious years so far at CUNY Law School. I
owe it to Howard Lesnick, our first academic dean, that I was
cajoled into leaving CCR and being part of the wild and creative
founding faculty of CUNY Law School, and became a teacher with
all the learning that entails, and in a context where social justice
and diversity are the raison d'etre and not just elective.
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In l992, Celina Romany and I founded IWHR, the Intl Women's
Human Rights Law Clinic (at CUNY), something I could never
have done without her and without the support of our Deans,
Haywood, Kris Glen, Mary Lu Bilek, and, now Michelle
Anderson, and many colleagues. Here, I want to note especially
the support of our former Clinic Director, Sue Bryant. Ingenious,
generous, deeply humane, and devoted to transformative
pedagogy, Sue built CUNY's eclectic, responsive and awardwinning clinical program through melding student need and faculty
commitments, a task which Sameer Ashar now carries forward.
After Celina left CUNY, I have had new, inspiring and beloved
partners in IWHR: Cathy Albisa, who recently (already 5 years
ago) founded NESRI, the National Economic and Social Rights
Initiative, which is doing extraordinary work putting economic and
social rights on the agenda in this country through ground-breaking
initiatives undertaken in partnership with grass roots movements.
For the last 7 years, I have had the comradeship of Andy Fields, a
brilliant lawyer and compassionate teacher who keeps us all
laughing; and, more recently, part time, Jennie Green, who has
built the international human rights program at the Center for
Constitutional Rights for almost 15 years and has slipped into
teaching like a hand into glove.
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IWHR has enabled me to combine activism, scholarship and
teaching as well as,-- I admit it -- kvell as students step in and
carry out the work and become what is the greatest reward-- the
"next generation" of activist lawyers, scholars, and teachers.
In short, none of what I have accomplished or tried was done
without a "gang" and I take the honoring of my women's human
rights work as recognition of the students and colleagues, the
women and men, and the great feminist and gender movements of
our time who made this work possible.
***
Finally, I want to say just two things about women's rights and
human rights, looking ahead at our tasks as progressive law
teachers.
We are 11 days from the inauguration of President Barack
Hussein Obama, an amazing historic event that fills me with thrill
and hope even as some of Obama's recent decisions give me pause
and remind us all that if he is to become, to whatever extent
possible, a transformative leader, we must be part of sustaining
progressive activism, research, and effective critiques .
First, with respect to women's rights:
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there is a disturbing tendency both domestically and
internationally to assume that women's rights are taken care
of because they have now been largely written down or are
rhetorically recognized. At the same time, domestically, it
seems completely acceptable not simply to be against
abortion personally but to impose this position on others as
well as to preach hatred of gay/lesbian/transgendered people.
Obama's choice of Rick Warren is symbolic; thankfully, the
outrage was broad and, in adding Bishop Gene Robinson to
the Lincoln Memorial event, he demonstrated that he had
listened.
Here and around the globe, intimate violence still ranks as the
number one killer of women and the leading –as well as
increasingly recognized in international law-- form of torture
and root of militarism;
the global economic recession and mal-distribution as well as
growing scarcity of water adds to women's burdens—still the
major caretakers of life--disproportionately and often
brutally;
women and single mothers in this country are losing jobs at
the same rate as men. At the same time, the proposed
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stimulus package needs to be revamped so that it responds
fairly to the needs of women and minorities.
secularism as public policy so essential to all human rights—
and particularly to women and gender dissidents who are
often the first targets of religious extremism-constitutionally secularism is in shambles and internationally
it is under immense challenge; it must be defended and
restored;
efforts to diminish the human rights system and the place of
women's rights abound internationally as autonomous
women’s projects are defunded or eliminated and needed
institutional reform languishes. In this country, we will have
a major fight just to join the 187 other countries that have
ratified CEDAW, the Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Discrimination Against Women, without crippling
reservations and other conditions.
and finally, women, especially in conflict zones such as
Afghanistan, have been largely ignored in both UN and US
diplomacy and thus the power of a huge constituency for
peace and tolerance, --not because of biology but because of
context--—is subordinated to war lords and corrupt leaders.
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In sum, women's human rights and women's human rights
defenders cannot be effectively or properly defended in a vacuum,
but they continue to require constant defense.
***
Second, as to human rights: the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.,
Malcolm X and Eleanor Roosevelt all were prescient in realizing
that it was necessary to move this country to an era of human
rights. This has to be that moment.
I am filled with hope by the emergence of the U.S. human rights
movement. The US human rights network (www.ushuman
rightsnet.org) provides a long overdue and hopefully sustainable
umbrella under which activists and scholars can come together,
challenge US exceptionalism, and move us toward indivisibility
and interdependence of universal rights in regard to both domestic
and foreign policy.
Actually, I was initially taken aback when my IWHR students—
who grew up and must contend with a Rehnquist/Roberts court -described the Constitution as "old hat" and ―useless.‖
I sat there
for a few minutes rather stunned as Arthur Kinoy was whispering
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vehemently in my ear—and then I rushed in. They were not
entirely wrong. Our task today is both to defend and restore
certain constitutional structures and rights—the limited executive,
habeas corpus and access to the judiciary, federal power to regulate
in the interest of civil rights and well-being, the no-establishment
principle and Roe v. Wade to name but a few. But at the same
time, I urged that our task is not to replace the now ruthlessly and
inconsistently neo-liberal Bill of Rights, but rather to expand it
through incorporation of the universal human rights framework, as
it constitutionally can and should.
Thus, I see it as part of our collective tasks as progressive teachers
to keep women and gender on the table along with all the other
wrongs and to build into our courses and across the curriculum an
understanding of how the universal framework of human rights
applies to US law, policy and culture as well as to global issues.
As Eleanor Roosevelt said, just over 50 years ago, on the 10th
anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human rights:
Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small
places, close to home - --and today we must add "in the
home." .… Without concerted citizen action to uphold them
close to -- and in the -- home, we shall look in vain for
progress in the larger world.
***
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In closing, I want to thank, --from the bottom of my heart,-everyone who has sustained me, and SALT for this recognition and
for the honoring of a fallen colleague and the hope in the future
that that the M. Shanara Gilbert Human Rights Award inspires.
This is a beautiful and memorable moment. Gracias as la vida!
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