Dear Reader, 

It is with great pride that I present the inaugural issue of Humanitas, the first undergraduate journal of human rights at the University of Virginia. This semester, our first class of nine Writers, eleven Editors, and 3 Managing Editors have been hard at work researching and writing articles that span the realm of human rights. From inequities in sickle cell treatment to the history of Catholicism in Vietnam, this issue covers a wide range of subjects, each one incredibly important and worthy of further discussion. Our Writers have drawn from coursework, independent research, and their own personal experiences, with several including personal testimony in their pieces.

“Human Rights” is an amorphous term, one that we hear often in our day-to-day lives. Until recently, I would have scarcely been able to articulate what it meant. In recent semesters, as my coursework has increasingly involved this concept of human rights, I have come to understand that “Human Rights” is best understood not as a mere term or legal category, but as a project. It is elastic and ever changing, and its boundaries expand and contract through discourse. The project of Human Rights is undertaken in the defense of human dignity, and those committed to this project seek to include within it those privileges and immunities that one is entitled to, merely by virtue of being born human.

Humanitas was established to give students the opportunity to contribute to this project; to test the plasticity of the term “Human Rights,” to publicize and contribute to conversations about what we should refer to when we invoke the term. When I decided to start this journal back in November, I could never have imagined the publication that we present to you today; over 40,000 words spread across more than 100 pages of critical human rights content. Each and every contributor to our publication has blown me away with their focus and creativity, and in the past four months they have consistently reaffirmed the Journal’s mission. There is no Humanitas without students like these, who exhibit a fierce passion for the study of human rights and want to see UVA students engage with those topics on a deeper level.

I would like to extend many thanks to the people represented in this publication who have made this effort possible. The results of this semester’s work have instilled in me a deep optimism for the future of human rights scholarship, and a drive to bring conversations like these to every corner of our university.

Sincerely, 

Katherine Hu

President & Founder of Humanitas

April 21st, 2025