International Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life

April 9, 2018

Throughout history, women have been under-represented in the U.S. government. Despite continued advances and reforms targeting this issue, the problem persists. On April 9, 2018, ENACT hosted two accomplished state legislators from New England for the ENACT Forum on Women's Engagement in Politics at Brandeis University, to discuss this and other issues. Terie Norelli, former New Hampshire speaker of the House and former president of the National Conference of State Legislators, and Massachusetts state Sen. Cindy Friedman shared personal experiences, frank advice and calls to action with the audience of Brandeis.

March 23, 2018

Throughout her childhood, Jennifer Almodovar Jimenez ’18 moved around a lot. New York City. Vermont. The Dominican Republic. Finally, Massachusetts. She attended nine different schools during her primary and secondary education. She found a lasting home at Brandeis after applying through the Myra Kraft Transitional Year Program, which provides small classes and strong support systems for high school graduates who have developed skills for college success through life experiences, but have had limited precollege academic opportunities. She has worked closely with the International Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life as a Sorensen Fellow and with 'DEIS Impact, the annual festival of social justice. Jimenez recently took some time to describe her Brandeis experience with BrandeisNow.

March 12, 2018

The International Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life at Brandeis celebrated its 20th anniversary March 12 with a symposium, “Democracies in Peril: The Role of the University,” and an evening of music, poetry and dance, “A Powerful Fire: Performances to Energize Our Next 20 Years.” A gift from the late Abraham Feinberg in 1998 established the center, which seeks to develop effective responses to conflict and injustice by offering innovative approaches to coexistence, strengthening the work of international courts, and encouraging ethical practice in civic and professional life.

March 12, 2018

On the 20th anniversary of the International Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life, BrandeisNOW sat down with director Daniel Terris to discuss his forthcoming book, “The Trials of Richard Goldstone” (Rutgers University Press, Fall 2018). Goldstone, a South African-born judge and human-rights lawyer, has served on the center’s International Advisory Board since its founding. He was the chief prosecutor at the United Nations’ tribunals that tried leaders of Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia for war crimes. He also authored a controversial report on violations of international law during the 2008-09 conflict in Gaza between the Israelis and Palestinians. Two years later, Goldstone retracted a claim in the report that Israel intentionally targeted civilians as a matter of policy.

March 6, 2018

Vanita Gupta, the former top civil rights prosecutor in the U.S. and current president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, was named the 2018 Brandeis University Richman Distinguished Fellow in Public Life. She is the first woman and the first child of immigrants to run the largest civil and human rights coalition in the nation.

January 25, 2018

ENACT: The Educational Network for Active Civic Transformation has announced the appointment of the second cohort of faculty fellows. The 13 new faculty fellows hail from colleges and universities in or near the state capitals of Alabama, California, Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon and Pennsylvania.

January 10, 2018

Four alumni of ENACT courses across the country are serving as the first ENACT student delegates this academic year.

October 27, 2017

Kimberlé Crenshaw, professor of law at UCLA and Columbia Law School and a leading authority in the area of civil rights, Black feminist legal theory, and race, racism and the law, was honored with the 2017 Joseph B. and Toby Gittler Prize. Crenshaw is a groundbreaking scholar of intersectionality who pioneered the intellectual movement known as Critical Race Theory. The Gittler Prize was created in 2007 by the late Joseph B. Gittler to recognize outstanding and lasting scholarly contributions to racial, ethnic and/or religious relations.

October 5, 2017

A blog post by Leigh Swigart, director of Programs in International Justice and Society at the Ethics Center, was chosen to launch the blog series for the British Council's 2017 Language and Development Conference in Dakar, Senegal. The post, "Bringing Little Heard Voices to an International Platform," lauded the International Criminal Court's work in helping witnesses prepare to testify at ICC trials in The Hague, Netherlands.

October 6, 2017

The Programs in International Justice and Society sponsored a screening of the film "Never Again: Forging a Convention for Crimes Against Humanity." The film looks at testimony from survivors of crimes against humanity to make a case for a new global treaty.

September 8, 2017

Gail Miller, a student in ENACT Faculty Fellow Kathleen Cole's ENACT course in spring 2017, reflects on her experiences in the program.

August 29, 2017

The Ethics Center will be concluding the Sorensen Fellowship program in December 2017, capping off 20 years of supporting incredibly talented, dedicated Brandeis undergraduates in ethics-related summer internships in the U.S. and abroad.

August 9, 2017

The National Conference of State Legislatures' Annual Legislative Summit brought more than 5,000 state legislators and others to Boston in August.

August 4, 2017

The 2017 Sorensen Fellows reflect on their experiences in the field this summer, contributing to work in the arts; criminal justice; LGBT rights; medicine and public health; refugee resettlement; access to mental health services; and racial justice.