The Northwestern University Community for Human Rights’ annual conference will kick off Thursday, with keynote speakers, panelists and students from around the country coming to campus to explore this year’s theme, “Human Rights in the Digital Age.”

The conference will feature five campus events open to the general public, according to the conference schedule: an opening and closing keynote and three panels, all of which take place between Thursday and Saturday.

NUCHR’s co-chairs, Weinberg seniors Callie Floyd and Caleigh Hernandez, said the conference’s theme touches students everywhere.

“This year it’s particularly relevant to the majority of the population just because everyone can relate to it. Everyone’s on social media. Everyone has a smart phone,” Hernandez said. “As technology has improved, what does this mean for our rights? What does this mean for our freedoms? How does national security play into this?”

Floyd said the conference is the largest student-attended collegiate human rights conference in the country. About 40 student delegates from colleges in both the United States and Canada will attend, as will NUCHR’s 24 executive board members and its general membership of about 50 students.

In addition, panelists and speakers will attend, including opening keynote speaker James Bamford, an author whose books have explored the National Security Agency’s surveillance practices, and closing keynote speaker P.W. Singer, a Brookings Institution fellow and a scholar on 21st-century warfare. 

Weinberg junior Melody Song, who heads NUCHR’s publicity and marketing operations, said she hopes the more technology-focused theme and speakers will attract a different population of students.

“One of our biggest goals is to draw a new crowd out, and I’m hoping that this topic will do that,” said Song, a former Daily senior staffer. “Normally, the social justice crowd attracts the same group over and over again, but this is a good way of reaching out to a new population at Northwestern, maybe students with a more science-y background.”

Floyd said NUCHR sought a wide-ranging group of speakers, as one major goal is to complicate students’ views of issues related to the theme.

“We’re presenting the most nuanced perspectives we can on this topic,” she said. “Even if people come in and they think they have an opinion about national security or mass surveillance or drones, that they can walk in and have some of those assumptions challenged and walk out with some different thoughts than they walked in with.”

Another major goal, Floyd said, is to dispel the idea that “human rights issues are things that happen in other countries or to the third world.”

“We want to make people realize that this idea of human rights is very relevant in everyday life,” Hernandez said. “Human rights violations are happening here, and significantly, and understanding that is important.”

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