For more than 50 years, the award-winning, quarterly Human Rights magazine has served as the flagship publication of the American Bar Association Section of Civil Rights and Social Justice Section (CRSJ). Consistent with the Section’s mission statement, the members of the Editorial Board work with select authors to address complex and difficult civil rights and civil liberties issues in our changing and diverse society to ensure that the protection of individual rights remains a focus of legal and policy decisions.
Civil rights legend John Lewis once advised the next generation of advocates, “if you come together with a mission, and it’s grounded with love and a sense of community, you can make the impossible possible.” CRSJ is such a community and Human Rights magazine is an important platform for the most challenging conversations and analyses of our time. The Editorial Board strives to provide diverse perspectives and opinions on consequential and often personal matters, and the conversations these diverse perspectives create help us to listen, learn, agree to disagree on some issues and find common ground on others.
The Editorial Board has been working on a special issue of Human Rights on Combating Islamophobia. This issue topic, selected by CRSJ leadership in furtherance of the new ABA Task Force, supports certain goals set forth in Resolution 524 adopted by the ABA in 2023, including promoting “understanding of Islam and Muslims, dispel stereotypes and misconceptions, and foster a culture of respect for religious diversity; supporting community-based initiatives that foster dialogue, understanding, and cooperation between different religious and cultural communities.” Similarly, the Editorial Board has been working on a special issue of Human Rights on Combating Antisemitism, which will be released in part next week. The issue was finalized before the election results.
In this issue, Combating Islamophobia Task Force Co-Chairs Adeel Bashir and Roula Allouch have outlined the contents of the issue in the introduction. With the delivery of this issue of Human Rights magazine, we join the Task Force in working to achieve the goals of the Section of Civil Rights and Social Justice broadly and Resolution 524 specifically. Please be on the lookout for our issue on Combating Antisemitism in the coming weeks.
We are,
Francine J. Lipman
Human Rights Editorial Board chair
and the members of the Editorial Board
Daniel Appelman, Emily Bergeron, Bobbi M. Bittker, Heather Krick, Frank D. LoMonte, Claire L. Parins, Gary Rhoades, Dr. Cynthia A. Swann, Keeshea Turner Roberts, and Stephen J. Wermiel
Please note: The views expressed herein have not been approved by the House of Delegates, the Board of Governors, the Section of Civil Rights and Social Justice or the Human Rights Editorial Board of the American Bar Association and, accordingly, should not be construed as representing the policy of the American Bar Association. They are the views of the individual authors themselves in their personal capacities.
