UN Commissioner Receives Human Rights Award From: University Currents Date: March 31, 2000 By: Carey Hoffman Phone: (513) 556-1825 Photo by: Dottie Stover Archive: Campus News, General News Mary Robinson has seen firsthand the worst the world has to offer. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights was quick to visit East Timor last September after a guerilla military campaign had left that territory in shambles. When she was President of Ireland, she was the first head of state to enter Rwanda and Somalia after humanitarian disasters there. So when she came to UC earlier this month in honor of the 20th anniversary of the College of Law's Urban Morgan Institute for Human Rights, the purpose of her visit was not only to honor but to inspire - and receive recognition herself. She recalled the words of the great civil liberties lawyer, Arthur Garfield Hays: "I hate to see people pushed around." "Lots of people are being pushed around in an undermining way on the basis of race or color of skin," Robinson said. "It is one of the least attractive features of human kind." During a dinner March 9 at the Kingsgate Conference Center, Robinson became the inaugural recipient of the Urban Morgan Institute's William J. Butler Medal of Human Rights. Butler is the son-in-law of Arthur Garfield Hays and the trustee of the Urban Morgan Education Fund who made the decision to endow the Urban Morgan Institute. Judge Nathaniel R. Jones, senior judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and a member of the institute's advisory board, introduced Robinson as a great individual blessed with Eleanor Roosevelt's common touch. "To those who have struggled for human rights around the world," Jones said, "the name Mary Robinson has been a source of great inspiration." In her remarks, Robinson likened Butler and his dedication to the Urban Morgan Institute to someone who planted a tree and now sees it bearing fruit. "It is an enormous pleasure that you honor me in the name of a friend like Bill Butler and his living tree that is growing and shaping the future of the field of human rights," she said. Of the institute itself, she added: "There is no doubt that the institute and the College of Law are providing an invaluable service. I think you do know (already) just how recognized it is, not just in the United States, but outside - everywhere that human rights defenders meet." In her U.N. role, Robinson is the most prominent figure in the human rights field today. She talked extensively about her role as Secretary-General for the first U.N. world conference of the new millennium, the World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, to be held next year in South Africa.