Human Rights, Gender, and Equity
The Human Rights, Gender, and Equity (HRGE) Concentration prepares future global leaders to address the human rights, gender, and equity challenges that multilateral, governmental, private sector, and civil society organizations seek to remedy, and gives students expertise in frameworks centered on the advancement of equity in international and domestic contexts.
HRGE provides a strong foundation in human rights, gender policy, and equity, enabling future policymakers and advocates to pursue rights-centered approaches that seek to protect against discrimination and abuse. Equity is the guiding concern of the concentration and is addressed through its courses, practicums, and workshops. The concentration includes courses focused on race, class, religion, ethnicity, and multiple other factors of inequality.
Students outside the concentration may take a cluster of courses in either Human Rights, Gender, or HRGE, as a sponsored minor.
Students will be able to critically apply the existing legal and policy frameworks for the promotion of human rights, gender and equity in international and domestic settings. They will:
- Be familiar with, and know how to apply, the primary institutional frameworks designed to promote human rights, gender rights, and the equity issues that such frameworks address (or fail to do so);
- Understand the reasons for mainstreaming gender, how it has been operationalized, and its limits
- Be familiar with approaches to human rights-based advocacy and policy-making (including in relation to gender) that have been utilized most effectively, and the issues they raise.
Who It’s For
Students who seek to pursue careers in human rights, gender policy, and, more generally, the promotion of equity through organizations ranging from NGOs to private corporations. Students also choose the concentration if they want to bring an equity, rights-based, or gendered perspective to work that is not directly focused on these issues, in order to increase organizational sensitivity and responsiveness.
Curriculum and Courses
In addition to the gateway course, students may (but are not required to) take either the human rights track or the gender track. Each track requires students to take 12 credits within the track.
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All MPA/ human rights or MPA/gender students must take at least one data analytics course in their track.
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All MIA/human rights students must take a course in International Human Rights Law; all MIA/gender students must take a course in Gender and Human Rights.
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MIA students who do not choose a track must take either IHRL or G&HR; MPA students who do not choose a track must take a data analytics course from the concentration’s offerings.
Student Career Paths
HRGE prepares students for careers in international organizations (including IFIs), NGOs, regional, national and local governments, think tanks and corporations. By way of example, they work on such issues as the human rights implications of corporations’ supply chains; the World Bank’s gender-related policies and reports, including monitoring and evaluation; regional organizations’ human rights and women’s commissions; public and private entities working on compliance with human rights due diligence standards. Graduates also form their own NGOs and social enterprises.
Related Degree Programs
Designed for students looking to facilitate and lead international cooperation, the MIA equips students to understand international political and legal institutions, and develop the skills of conflict resolution, diplomacy, and inter-cultural competency necessary to achieve change on the worldwide stage.
Developed for students looking to lead the policymaking process, the MPA provides a data-rich analytical education, equipping students to understand policy challenges and to develop, implement, and evaluate policy solutions. The MPA is STEM-designated so that students in all policy domains will be eligible to apply for OPT extensions where relevant.
Contact Us
Yasmine Ergas
Senior Lecturer in the Discipline of International and Public Affairs; Concentration Co-Director
IAB Room 826 | [email protected]
Rachel Vogelstein
Associate Professor of Professional Practice; Concentration Co-Director
[email protected]
Sophie Holin
Concentration Coordinator
IAB Room 803 | [email protected]