U.S. Higher Education & Human Rights Day
Today is Human Rights Day. While celebrating the importance of human rights throughout the world, this holiday also commemorates the UN’s passage of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. After a two-year drafting process (by a 18 member committee chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt), 48 countries came together to vote in favor of making a non-binding commitment to the expansion of human rights and universal respect for human dignity. Not a single vote was cast against the Declaration (although 8 countries did abstain). Among the human rights issues enumerated in the Declaration, was the right to education. The first section of Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights reads as follows: Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.