Students Demand Amnesty for the New School
Group founded to fight for human rights finally comes to the university
Monday, September 27th, 2010
As a result of the efforts of a couple of enterprising students with the graduate program in International Affairs, The New School is getting its first ever Amnesty International chapter.
Founder Lara Golesorkhi holds a banner for The New School's first Amnesty International Chapter. Photo by Sarah Bures.
Golesorkhi is currently the New York City area student coordinator for Amnesty International. She got the position through her work founding another chapter at her alma mater, Wingate University in North Carolina. Wingate, a conservative university, wasn’t receptive to the chapter. There, questioning political issues like the death penalty was considered innapropriate and controversial. She had hoped that at The New School she could find a receptive audience, but instead arrived to vacuum of activism.
“I was honestly really surprised that The New School didn’t have an Amnesty International chapter,” said Golesorkhi, considering the history of Amnesty International and The New School’s reputation of being a socially conscious university.
Amnesty International was founded in 1961 to fight for human rights. Initially a small volunteer-run organization with representatives from a couple of European countries and the United States, Amnesty International now has over two million members in more than 150 countries around the world. The campaigns run by the organization range from terminating the death penalty to stopping illicit arms trade and putting an end to violence against women.
The New School shares a similar history of social and political activism, yet that underlying current has failed to surface in the form of any university-recognized student organization. According to the Office of Student Development and Activities, an Amnesty International student organization was initiated last year, but never got off the ground due to a lack of initiative on the part of the student organizers. While there are numerous student-run organizations at The New School that have a specific emphasis on certain political and social issues, none focus specifically on human rights.
Golesorkhi, along with fellow GPIA student Timo Mueller and a group of other dedicated students, hope to change that.
Golesorkhi and Mueller met through a GPIA mixer held during orientation week, and united by their prior experience of working with Amnesty International (Mueller started volunteering at age 17 in his native Berlin), they began organizing a student chapter. Golesorkhi said that Mueller “has been very, very supportive from the very beginning.” He immediately began advertising the group: creating a Facebook page (Amnesty International – The New School), sending out mass emails through the university email list, and compiling upcoming events. There is a group of around 15 students who are actively working to spread the word about the chapter.
They have been met with a positive response, especially at student events around campus. “We had a table at the block party, and we had a humongous outcome of people who were interested in [the group],” said Ms. Golesorkhi. “We actually ran out of space on our sign up sheets,” she added. In that one afternoon, over 120 people signed up.
The group held its first meeting on September 8 and students from across The New School attended, according to Golesorkhi. However, she says that most of the active members are GPIA and Milano students, as these are the students she and Mueller have had the most contact with. She ultimately hopes to engage students from all corners of the New School. “We want to reach out to everybody because human rights affects everybody,” Golesorkhi said. “It’s not like it affects you and not me.”
The Amnesty International student chapter at The New School is currently electing officers within the group and is actively reaching out to prospective members.
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This is pointless. 120 people