Where are you from, and why there?
I’ll say the Midwest. I was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. We moved nine times growing up. I spent my youth all around, formative years in Chicago, high school and higher education years in Kansas, and most of my academic years in Wilmington, Delaware, where I joined Widener University Delaware Law School and we settled and raised a family. Kansas is home once again, where I’ve since joined Washburn University School of Law.
Which issue(s) do you work on/care about, and why?
Dignity law! This means the work that human dignity does in constitutions, courts, classrooms and boardrooms. (As I write this, I’m at a summit sharing reflections about “Democracy, Dignity and Climate Change,” hosted by Arizona State University. It’s a gathering of contributing authors to the book “Democracy in a Hotter Time: Climate Change and Democratic Transformation,” which Nature Magazine named as a 'best book' of 2023. We’re discussing what to do about the stiff winds democracy faces these days, and what it means for climate change and human dignity.)
Everyone, everywhere, possesses the right to human dignity, like a magic coin received at birth. That dignity exists is hardly contested. What to do about it is. Dignity law is the lens through which to advance the complex relationship between human dignity and the rule of law.
Do you realize that nearly 170 countries have constitutions that recognize the right to human dignity, and that hundreds of courts have applied them in thousands of cases? Yet, for the most part – and especially in the U.S. – dignity as a legal claim or construct is overlooked. While the U.S. Supreme Court has mentioned dignity in support of recognizing rights to same-sex relations, marriage, and reproductive rights, and against cruel and unusual punishment and the death penalty, it has all but ignored the concept since Justice Kennedy retired. Some state constitutions recognize it, but there isn’t much domestic jurisprudence about it, notwithstanding its immediate application in such areas as climate change, criminal justice, immigration, equality and voting. Dignity remains a powerful if underutilized legal concept.
How did you get involved?
It started with reading a book a friend recommended about dignity rights. I’m a recovering human rights litigator and professor of constitutional law. Notwithstanding its potential it was curious to me how little notice dignity law received in public discourse. I decided to do something about it.
So, about a dozen years ago I mapped out a plan to advance a series of “firsts” in dignity law, including a project (now the “Dignity Law Institute” at Delaware Law), a practicum (now the “Dignity Rights Clinic” at Delaware Law), a first-time course and first-time textbook (“Dignity Law”), a non-profit (Dignity Rights International), and what I think of as an owner’s manual (“Advanced Introduction to Human Dignity and Law”). I compiled the ways in which dignity appears in constitutions in the U.S. and around the globe. We taught students at multiple institutions, pursued and assisted high-impact litigation, wrote amicus briefs, worked with partners around the globe, and earned recognition, including a special award from Bloomberg. I look forward to continuing to advance dignity law at Washburn. All this is to bridge the gap between dignity as a concept and dignity as a difference.
What’s the biggest challenge for the issue(s) today?
Making dignity legally relevant. Human dignity is a profound normative concept, recognized since antiquity the world over. Yet judges and litigants – especially in the U.S. – remain reluctant to think of dignity as a right or a concept that animates other rights and remedies, notwithstanding the surfeit of cases and extent of constitutional recognition. I’m soon publishing an article called “Subnational Dignity Rights in America” that tells the tale. It argues that both legal and societal outcomes would benefit from more dignity in laws and lawsuits.
Who are your most frequent allies? Any surprises?
The Dignity Rights Initiative of the Center for Human Rights (CHR) at the American Bar Association (ABA) tops the list. The biggest surprise is how. It started with a meeting I had with Hon. Bernice Donald, who served as Chair of CHR. Judge Donald told me about a courtroom experience she had as a young person that she felt violated human dignity. It stuck with her. She said that experience set the course of her career. A friendship took hold. Judge Donald visited us at Delaware Law School, gave a keynote address at a symposium on Environmental Dignity and Justice, co-authored an article, and arranged for me to talk with the CHR Board about dignity law. And then, at the suggestion of CHR Director Michael, we worked with students in the Dignity Rights Practicum at Delaware Law School to draft and enact the ABA resolution recognizing dignity as the foundation of law. We then created the ABA Dignity Rights Initiative within CHR to implement the resolution. And then CHR, along with the ABA Section on Environment, Energy and Resources, co-sponsored another successful ABA resolution to promote environmental justice, in part to advance human dignity.
Students have been essential to the effort, including those who took a course, contributed to a practicum or clinic, asked hard questions, and assisted with research and drafting. Most start knowing little about human dignity rights and by graduation are ardent dignity law enthusiasts. It’s inspirational to observe how they then incorporate dignity law into their careers and the practice of law.
We’ve enjoyed lots of support and consanguinity, including from Widener University, Delaware Law School, Washburn University School of Law, Jigme Singjigme Singye Wangchuck School of Law, Bhutan, Pakistan College of Law Dignity Rights Center, Justice Mansoor Ali Shah from the Supreme Court of Pakistan, and the World Dignity University. I consider the InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Toxics and Human Rights to be courageous allies for accepting and acting on long-shot petitions we filed to advance human dignity rights for children in Cité Soliel, Haiti.
Partners include the Business and Human Rights Resource Center; Center for International Legal Studies, South Africa; Dignity Media, Nepal; Environmental Law Institute; Lenape Indian Tribe, Delaware, U.S.; Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti/Bureau des Avocats Internationales, Boston, U.S. and Port-au-Prince, Haiti; Institute of Romani Culture in Albania (IRCA); Pakistan Supreme Court and High Court of Lahore, Pakistan; Prisoners Legal Advocacy Network; PILnet, New York, U.S.; Refugee Legal Support – UK and Greece; SOMRAR – Human Rights in Somaliland; United Nations Environment Program; United Nations International Organization for Migration; and the Université de la Fondation Aristide, Haiti. Other allies include Catherine Dupré (Exeter, UK), Stephen Kass, Esq. (New York, U.S.), Alicia Kelly (Delaware Law, U.S.), Dina Lupin (UK), and Nick Mirkay (University of Hawai’i Law, U.S.), to name a few who have gone above and beyond during our dignity law journey.
What drives you?
Injustice. It bothers me. Dignity law has enormous potential to advance justice and improve the human condition, if only we’ll give it voice and volition.
What do you want your career/advocacy to stand for?
An openness to different ways of thinking about thinking, whether it be dignity law, environmental human rights, environmental law, comparative constitutionalism, engineering, the legal profession, or the human heart. Subvert the dominant paradigm. That approach has taken me on professional and personal paths I wouldn’t have imagined.