6 Human Rights Course Programs in North America

Pair a major with our five-course concentration to get an in-depth focus on human rights and humanitarian issues. Through the concentration—which includes classes in social sciences, humanities, and even fine arts—our students gain a nuanced understanding of the history of human rights and humanitarianism, and the institutional frameworks that govern them, as well as the theoretical and philosophical debates over the meanings of human rights and humanitarianism. Students grapple with a range of current and past global human rights problems and evaluate debates over the methods, motivations, and consequences of human rights and humanitarian action.

Trinity College’s Human Rights Program, the first human rights program at a liberal arts college in the United States, is committed to excellence in the study and practice of human rights. The Program seeks to foster critical debate about human rights problems, inter-disciplinary dialogue, and conversations that bridge the divide between local and global human rights concerns.

The Minor in Human Rights Advocacy seeks to educate the next generation of advocates by engaging students in supervised human rights fact-finding, documentation, and advocacy. The Minor provides a rigorous, structured program of study of human rights through focused coursework, combined with supervised, reflective engagement in practical human rights projects in partnership with the University Network for Human Rights (UNHR).

The Human Rights minor gives a firm grounding in the international human rights system and then allows students the flexibility to choose electives according to their specific interests. The minor can accompany any major.

Human rights are predicated upon the belief that every human being deserves to be treated with equal dignity, and that every person has inherent value. But how do we move towards these goals? In this collaborative, interdisciplinary degree program, you will investigate how we fulfill these ideals, but also how we fail to do so in different times and places. In acknowledging human rights, their power and their fragility, we become fully human. You will gain a critical understanding of, and experience in, the growing field of human rights. You’ll examine how different groups have understood and fought for expanded rights protection throughout history. You’ll learn about and critique the effectiveness of legal, diplomatic and political frameworks that have been employed to protect these rights.

This course will allow journalism educators to make a real impact on American newsrooms' future diversity, inclusion, and equity efforts when they model those values in the classroom. This online group seminar will empower you to examine your current teaching materials and curriculum with an eye toward inclusion and representation and give you the tools and skills to diversify your lessons, examples, speakers, and more.