Human Rights Expert Says Surviving the Holocaust Motivated His Career

The last question at the “On the Issues with Mike Gousha” program at Marquette Law School on Thursday with Judge Thomas Buergenthal went to a retired Milwaukee school teacher who painted a gloomy picture of the state of the world.

“Humanity is having a real problem,” she said. “These are horrible times right now.”

Buergenthal answered in a positive fashion: “You’re too pessimistic,” he said. “Things are happening. They’re not happening as fast as you and I would like it to happen. There are some bad things happening too. But overall, we are moving slowly, too slowly.” He mentioned efforts by the United Nations and regional human rights organizations around the world that he thought were having positive impact.

“We do more harm to these developments if we think they’re not working.” He said. “So the trick is to stay with it.“

Buergenthal has stayed with it for decades. He is an authority on international and human rights law and one of the youngest Holocaust survivors. He is an emeritus professor of law at George Washington Law School and a former judge of the International Court of Justice at the Hague – among many distinctions and accomplishments. And he is author or co-author of numerous books, including a memoir, A Lucky Child, about surviving Auschwitz as a child. In his early 80s, he is, in fact, one of the youngest survivors of the notorious Nazi concentration camp.

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Roggensack Calls for Defending Legitimacy of Courts from “Tough Talk” of Critics

Wisconsin Supreme Court Chief Justice Patience Roggensack wanted to use her Hallows Lecture at Marquette Law School on March 7 “to start what I hope will be a public conversation about a rising challenge to the institutional legitimacy of our courts, both state and federal.”

Roggensack launched the conversation with strong words for those she thinks are harming the standing of courts as a whole. She named names and spoke forcefully about the impact of those inside and outside the legal system who have disparaged some judges and justices in personal terms or who have said the Wisconsin Supreme Court and other courts make decisions based on political allegiances. She criticized what she called their “tough talk.”

“Most tough talk comes from those who have no conscious intent to harm the institutional legitimacy of courts, but have not considered the unintended consequences that may follow from their fully protected speech,” Roggensack said.

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Amid Continuing Concerns, MPS Chief Highlights Progress in School Initiatives

“I’m very impatient and I want everything changed overnight. But it doesn’t happen that way.”

How does it happen? I Supt takes time. It takes the involvement of pretty much everyone in the community. It takes a willingness to make changes, but then stick with them so that they can take root and grow.

Those were among the broad and important lessons Darienne Driver, the superintendent of Milwaukee Public Schools, offered at an “On the Issues with Mike Gousha” program at Marquette Law School on Wednesday. Driver was enthusiastic about progress being made within MPS and about the prospects for success growing. But she was also realistic about MPS’s problems, and about how it will take time before the impact of current initiatives can be judged.

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