Michael Danser/The Daily Campus

The SMU Human Rights minor has only been offered since 2007, but with 46 students currently declared as minors, a new set of offices in Clements Hall and over 87 students in the process of declaring, it’s evident the program continues to emerge as a popular discipline.

According to the Embrey Human Rights Program website, the program was inspired by a 10-day trip that Lauren Embrey, her two sons and Professor Rick Halperin, current director of the program, took during the winter of 2005 to Holocaust sites in Poland. After the trip, Embrey and her sister, Gayle, started talking to SMU about ways to fund a human rights program for students and the SMU community.

Fewer than two years later, Dedman College offered the minor when SMU received a $1 million donation from Lauren Embrey, Gayle and the Embrey Family Foundation.

Although the program expanded quickly, it lacked a central location for

students to learn more about the program’s offerings.

But in the summer of 2010, the Embrey Human Rights Program moved into a new set of offices in Clements Hall, where students can easily access information about the degree, find out about upcoming events and learn how to get involved in the Human Rights Program student organization, a Student Leadership Initiative.

Despite the importance of human rights to society, SMU is one of only 19 universities in the United States offering a minor in human rights and the only university in the Southwest. 

“We [as a society] don’t spend any time talking about the concept of rights,” Halperin said, so, “it’s perfectly logical that if we don’t spend any time talking about it, we won’t spend time teaching about it.”

Emily Langille, a junior CCPA major and anthropology and human rights double minor, believes the program is a vital part of the SMU curriculum.

“Human rights is an eye-opening minor because there are so many injustices in the world that not many people even know about,” Langille said. “We need to learn about them so society can help.”

Currently, the Embrey Human Rights Program offers a variety of courses in an array of disciplines from cinema television to philosophy.

Although human rights programs aren’t popular in the U.S., Langille feels fortunate to be a part of a university that offers one.

“Every class I have taken for the minor has been a great experience,” she said. “I have learned so much from them and have become even more passionate about human rights.”

Students like Langille will be happy to know that the Human Rights major is currently in process, and if it passes, will be offered in the fall of 2011.

For more information visit the new office in Clements, the website www.smu.edu/humanrights or attend the information session held on Thursday Sept. 2 at 6:30 p.m. in the Hughes-Trigg Student Center Forum.