SAR Press Release:

'Scholars at Risk' to visit New York University on Sept 19
SAR-PR-05-08-29

New York, NY - A seminar entitled "Courage to Think: Displaced Intellectuals in the US, Voices from Scholars at Risk" featuring visiting formerly-threatened intellectuals from Liberia, Pakistan and Rwanda will be held at New York University on September 19. The event is co-sponsored by the Scholars at Risk Network and the NYU Law Students for Human Rights.

The participating scholars include a writer and professor of literature from Liberia, a political scientist from Pakistan and a human rights researcher and activist from Rwanda. These scholars were forced to flee their home countries after becoming targets for harassment and violence. They were targeted as independent thinkers in societies where new ideas are not always tolerated.

The seminar will allow faculty and students an opportunity to learn from first-hand experiences of scholars working under threat to promote new ideas and overcoming the challenges of displacement.

Scholars at Risk, a NYU-based, international network of more than 100 universities and colleges, works to promote academic freedom and to defend the human rights of scholars and scholarly communities worldwide. Scholars at Risk's primary activity is to arrange temporary visits to universities and colleges for individuals that suffer persecution because of their work, prominence, or the exercise of fundamental human rights. Scholars at Risk partners with the Institute of International Education's Scholar Rescue Fund which awarded fellowships to each of these scholars to support their work this year in the US.

Hosted by the Provost's Office, Scholars at Risk relocated to NYU from the University of Chicago in 2003. NYU already has hosted four scholars through the Network, including Saad Eddin Ibrahim, a renowned sociologist who was imprisoned and tried in Egypt on charges widely denounced as politically motivated. NYU has also hosted scholars from Cote d'Ivoire, Iran and Rwanda.

NYU has a long tradition of assisting threatened scholars. In the 1930s and 1940s, when many scholars fled the dictatorships of Europe, NYU was one of many universities that welcomed academic refugees, including such eminent scholars as Richard Courant, for whom the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences is named, Curt Sachs, a musicologist and art scholar Walter Friedlaender.

This seminar is co-sponsored by the Scholars at Risk Network and the NYU Law Students for Human Rights (LSHR). LSHR is a student group that seeks to promote global human rights, establish a forum for education, advocacy and direct service related to human rights, build a community for future practitioners of human rights law, and study and advance strategic human rights issues through speakers and other activities. For more information about LSHR, visit: http://www.law.nyu.edu/studentorgs/lshr.

For more information about Scholars at Risk, please visit http://scholarsatrisk.nyu.edu or call (212) 998-2179.

The seminar will be held on September 19, 12:00 - 1:30 pm at New York University (Furman Hall, Rm. 318, located at 245 Sullivan Street, New York, NY). Media and non-NYU persons interested in attending the event must RSVP by contacting Carla Stuart. Please email you name and affiliation to .

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