Claremont McKenna College

The nascent Students Against Genocide (SAG) had an important inaugural year, focusing many eyes 5,000 miles from the College, on a continent plagued by war, genocide, hunger, and HIV/AIDS. The group's work complements efforts by the established Students for Peace and Justice, campus visits from influential guest speakers on humanitarian crises, and a growing number of CMC students studying in Africa (rising from two to five percent of total students studying abroad over the past two years).

SAG leader Colin Hunter '05 says that while CMC students recently have been spurred to action, the concern certainly is not new to the community. "CMC's increasing involvement in such issues should be understood first as the result of decades of dedication by professors John Roth, Jonathan Petropoulos, and Ed Haley, among others," says Hunter, speaking of the director, associate director, and interim director, respectively, of the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights. With more than three decades invested in the teaching and research of Holocaust issues at the College, the Center, launched in 2003, provides invaluable research and travel opportunities, such as the AnneMerie Donoghue Human Rights Fellowships, allowing students to delve deeply into both the theoretical and practical underpinnings of human rights.

Hunter says it was conversations with Haley, the W.M. Keck Foundation Chair of International Strategic Studies, as well as news accounts of the crisis in Darfur, that inspired SAG's formation.

"With expert scholars, a new research institute, and public-minded students, CMC is in a unique position to contribute to future leaders' understanding of human rights," says Hunter. "We all agreed that something needed to be done." Visit: http://www.studentsagainstgenocide.org/

Complementing SAG's campaign—including travel to Washington, D.C., to meet with legislators, foreign service officers, and experts on the genocide in Sudan—other CMC students have seized the chance to raise awareness for human rights issues in Africa, both on campus and in the nation's capital. Students for Peace and Justice, headed by Keara Duggan '05, has raised more than $6,500 for the International Rescue Committee with T-shirts reading Stop Genocide in Sudan and—along with other 5-C groups including Challah for Hunger, Amnesty International, and the Women's Union at Pomona College—distributed materials to spur students to contact media to urge continued coverage of the Sudan. Kyle Salter '07 and James Kezele '07 raised awareness of the kidnapping and forced military enlistment of orphaned Sudanese children with a screening of the independent film Invisible Children, and both Alla Lefkowitz '05 and Amy Nelson '05 narrowed their sights on human rights concerns in Central Africa for their senior theses.

Lefkowitz, recipient of a Rotary scholarship to study in the West African Republic of Cameroon, is focusing on Failures of the NGO Revolution: The Case of Central Africa. Nelson, awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to study relationships between AIDS, prostitution, and NGO's in Cameroon next year, says academic research is the first step toward alleviating the serious problems of the region. "We must study the local conditions that affect decision-making," says Nelson, "or we are doomed to repeat the failures of the last few decades."

Dean of Students Jeff Huang says efforts such as these exemplify "the kind of student leadership that can shape our social culture for the better."

Current CMCers dedicated to the human rights struggles of Central Africa follow a path well-worn not only by faculty, but also by alumni. Krista Zongolowicz '98, a Ghana-based associate resettlement officer for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, http://www.unhcr.ch/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/home, credits Roth's Holocaust class for synthesizing her interest in the Holocaust and the Jewish Diaspora into an academic passion. Before that, she says, "West Africa seemed the most far-flung region of all, considering its tremendous political instability."

Zongolowicz, who holds a master's degree in forced migration from Oxford, says refugees often face lingering problems such as severe medical issues, harassment by unwelcoming authorities, or devastated economies that leave them jobless, barring them from leading productive lives in asylum countries. She serves as an advocate for and researches solutions available to displaced families throughout West and Central Africa, including Ghana, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. When assisting a Liberian family, for example, she must determine the level of international protection and integration in their current county of asylum, and assess the possibilities of repatriation, all the while considering particular vulnerabilities or circumstances that would require their admission to a third country for resettlement.

Zongolowicz, whose route to Ghana began with a summer job with the International Rescue Committee in Phoenix and included a Fulbright Teaching Assistantship in Paris, graduate studies in Russian at the Sorbonne, and an internship with the International Organization for Migration in Geneva, says that while aspects of the job are a disturbing testimony to humankind's self-inflicted turmoil, those same aspects make the work unforgettable. "As routine as it may get," she says, "your job can have an immense impact on someone's life."

The perspectives of CMCers in international matters, such as SAG's efforts to address the conflict-torn region of Darfur, is in keeping with the Holocaust Center's mission to prepare leaders who can intervene effectively against genocide and other human rights abuses, says Roth.

"This kind of initiative challenges us to be morally active in opposing human suffering," adds Haley. "It is a reminder of what it means to be human."

SAG members, meanwhile, say they are undeterred by the enormity of the problem. "Our political system reacts to the strong will of the people," says Eric Brinkert '05. "We must be persistent and resolved to show that it is not merely a small group of students in Southern California, but an entire generation of young Americans who take human rights seriously."

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Students Against Genocide members Adrienne Cohen, Colin Hunter, Eric Brinkert, and Danny Cahir, all Class of 2005, with the support of Ed Haley and the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights, are spearheading efforts to encourage U.S. policymakers to stop genocide in Darfur.


Paul Rusesabagina, former acting manager of the Hotel des Mille Collines, Rwanda, and his wife, Tatiana, meet students at the Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum.


William Schulz, executive director of Amnesty International USA, and Rick Smith, CEO of Taser International, debate the use of Taser devices.