Will Free Speech and Human Rights Survive the Worldwide Pandemic?

April 29, 2021

Will Free Speech and Human Rights Survive the Worldwide Pandemic?

Event Series: Free Speech at the Crossroads: International Dialogues

When (if) the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic subsides, what toll will it have taken on free speech and human rights around the globe? Have governments, both democratic and authoritarian, taken advantage of it to consolidate their power? Have civil liberties been sacrificed in order to try to restore public health safeguards? What explains the extreme impact of the disease on disadvantaged minorities? This international dialogue brought together academic experts, human rights activists, and a field worker for Catholic Relief Services to explore these and related issues.

This event was co-sponsored by the Free Speech Project and the Future of the Humanities Project at Georgetown University.

Participants

Pia Jolliffe

Pia Jolliffe grew up in Vienna, has worked in the human rights field, and now teaches Japanese history in the Oxford University Department of Continuing Education.

Michael West Oborne

Michael West Oborne, who lives in Paris, was a university professor in the United States and France before serving as a senior official with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Patricia Williams

Patricia Williams is University Distinguished Professor of Law and Humanities at Northeastern University in Boston. In 2000, she was named a MacArthur Fellow (known as “genius grants”).

Alex Woelkers

Alex Woelkers grew up in Montana and has volunteered or worked with humanitarian and development organizations around the world. He has served as an international relief worker in Kenya, Somalia, Uganda, and now Bangladesh.

Michael Scott

Professor Michael Scott (moderator) is Senior Dean, Fellowof Blackfriars Hall, the University of Oxford, college adviser for postgraduate students, and a Member of the Las Casas Institute.

Sanford J. Ungar

Sanford J. Ungar (moderator), president emeritus of Goucher College, directs the Free Speech Project at Georgetown University, which documents challenges to free expression in education, government, and civil society in the United States.