5 Ways We Can Do a Better Job of Fulfilling the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
On December 10, 1948, the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a common standard of achievement for all countries, and to ensure the freedom and dignity of all people. Today, 66 years later, there are several areas where the United States has failed to fully meet the declaration’s standards. Here are five:
Education
"Everyone has the right to education…and higher education should be equally accessible to all" – Article 26
Sixty years after Brown v. Board of Education, further equitable change is needed to end the debilitating racial disparities between White students and students of color. In March, the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights released a comprehensive look at civil rights data from all 97,000 U.S. public schools. The data revealed that racial disparities begin as early as preschool, where students of color are three times more likely to be suspended and expelled than White students.
Profiling
"No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honor and reputation." – Article 12
Every day, people in our country are unfairly targeted by law enforcement due to their race or ethnicity, gender, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, or gender identity. As events in Ferguson and across the country have shown, significant and harmful biases exist within law enforcement. Alarmingly, young Black men are 21 times more likely than their White counterparts to be shot dead by police.
Voting Rights
"Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives." – Article 21
The critical need for strong, federal voting protections was made clear on Election Day, when reports flooded in from across the country of voters unable to exercise their fundamental right to vote. In January, Congress introduced the Voting Rights Amendment Act to restore vital voting protections of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) gutted in the Supreme Court's disastrous Shelby County v. Holder decision in June 2013. While the Senate held a hearing in June, the House has failed to act at all. Until Congress restores the VRA, voters will continue to face discrimination.
Equal Pay and Minimum Wage
"Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work. Everyone who works has the right to just and favorable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity." – Article 23
This year, President Obama signed an executive order raising the minimum wage for employees of federal contractors to $10.10, as well as orders strengthening enforcement of equal pay laws. While these orders will help employees of federal contractors, only Congress can increase the federal minimum wage and narrow the gender pay gap for all Americans – issues that were blocked in the Senate, and not taken up in the House, this year.
Marriage Equality
"All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law." – Article 7
In October, the Supreme Court turned down appeals from five states seeking to ban same-sex marriage, effectively expanding the number of states with marriage equality to 30 ( now even more), and President Obama said that he believes that the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution guarantees same-sex marriage in all 50 states. Although tremendous progress was made this year, same-sex marriage is still illegal in more than a dozen states.
