Release date: Dec. 14, 2004
Contact: Elaine Justice at 404-727-0643 or elaine.justice@emory.edu

Response to Sudan Crisis Part of Growing Campus Movement

When Deborah Lipstadt faces students in her course on the Holocaust at Emory University, she repeatedly gets asked the same questions: Why did everyone let this happen? Why didn't anyone try to stop it?

"I give them the standard responses," says Lipstadt. "But I felt like an apologist. I realized that as a professor of Holocaust studies, I have a responsibility to stand up and do something about genocide when I see it happening."

As Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies and director of the Tam Institute for Jewish Studies at Emory, Lipstadt knows intimately the reasons for the Holocaust and the lack of world response. As her book, "Denying the Holocaust" and the subsequent British libel trial with Holocaust denier David Irving eloquently attest, even the most appalling evidence can be denied--or just ignored.

That's why Lipstadt spearheaded a campus-wide response to the crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan. The effort has brought together students, faculty and staff from across the university to plan events and mobilize public support and action.

To date, the Sudan Working Group at Emory has seen an outpouring of support and action from across the university. Academic departments and student groups have sponsored lectures, panel discussions and more than a dozen public meetings to brief people on what is happening and ways they can take action. Campus speakers have included journalists and writers such as best selling author Peter Balakian, refugees who were among the Lost Boys of Sudan, veteran researchers from Emory's Rollins School of Public Health who have done work in the region, scientists at the nearby Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and many others.

Student groups, from Emory Hillel to the Muslim Students' Association, have organized letter-writing campaigns and an array of fund raising events, even a "fast-a-thon" to raise money for Doctors Without Borders. Sudan activists at Emory also are plugged in to a growing network of campus activism around the country: Some students are joining grassroots e-mail listservs; others are making plans to attend a national student leadership conference in Washington, D.C., in February sponsored by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and STAND (Students Taking Action Now: Darfur) of Georgetown University.

For more on Emory's response to the Sudan crisis go to:

http://www.emory.edu/EMORY_REPORT/erarchive/2004/December/er%20december%206/panelsudan.htm

or

http://www.emory.edu/EMORY_REPORT/erarchive/2004/November/er%20november%208/firstperson.htm

Emory University is known for its demanding academics, outstanding undergraduate college of arts and sciences, highly ranked professional schools and state-of-the-art research facilities. For nearly two decades Emory has been named one of the country's top 25 national universities by U.S. News & World Report. In addition to its nine schools, the university encompasses The Carter Center, Yerkes National Primate Research Center and Emory Healthcare, the state's largest and most comprehensive health care system.

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