Robert & Ethel Kennedy Human Rights Center

06/03/2026

Please join us in celebrating the graduating seniors from our 2025-26 John Lewis Young Leaders cohort and their incredible accomplishments over the past year! As Senator Kennedy once said, "It is a revolutionary world that we all live in, and thus it is the young people who must take the lead." And these young leaders are doing just that. Our heartfelt congratulations, and thank you, to all!

06/02/2026

Thank you Jake Tapper for always speaking truth to power!

06/01/2026

Happy Pride Month! As LGBTQ+ rights are under attack more than ever, we're celebrating the joy of q***r love and expression this month. To the q***r community: we see you, we hear you, we stand with you.

05/28/2026

Most social media jobs sell products. This one defends people.

The Robert & Ethel Kennedy Human Rights Center is launching its first-ever Student Ambassador Program, and we're calling on student content creators to join the next generation of human rights activists!

We’re looking for:
🔹 Current student creators with 15,000+ followers on Instagram or TikTok.
🔹 Passion and drive to defend human rights in the United States & abroad.

💰 Paid | 🌐Remote & flexible | 📅July 6 - August 17, 2026

Learn more and apply to the role: https://rekhrc.org/4tZBiRq

05/28/2026

Another one in the books! 🎾 Earlier this month, The '68 Collective hit the court for Rally for Rights, an afternoon of friendly pickleball rivalry.

Robert and Ethel Kennedy were lifelong lovers of sport and a little competition. Trading d***s and rallies for a good cause - pretty fitting if you ask us. Thank you to everyone who came out!

Want in on the next one? 🔗 Stay up to date on The '68 Collective events: https://rekhrc.org/4utU849

05/26/2026

: We join Odhikar and a dozen other human rights organizations in calling on the Bangladesh government for International Week of the Disappeared to ensure truth, justice, and reparation for victims of disappearances and their families.

We met with families and survivors of enforced disappearance during our trip to Bangladesh last year, and heard firsthand the anguish of those still searching for answers.

We are deeply concerned that the government scrapped ordinances criminalizing enforced disappearances and reforming the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) last month and has now proposed watered-down versions of those laws. Under the proposed legislation, the NHRC can no longer directly investigate abuses by security forces.

We call on the government of Bangladesh to enact comprehensive legislation criminalizing enforced disappearances and establishing a strong, independent NHRC in line with international standards.

Read the statement ⬇️.

In Bangladesh, enforced disappearance was systematically used as a tool of state repression during the 15-and-a-half-year rule of the Awami League government.

05/26/2026

The Robert F. Kennedy Book Award was founded in 1980 with the proceeds from Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.’s bestselling biography, "Robert Kennedy and His Times."

Each year, we present an award to the book that, as Schlesinger said, “most faithfully and forcefully reflects Robert Kennedy’s purposes – his concern for the poor and the powerless, his struggle for honest and even-handed justice, his conviction that a decent society must assure all young people a fair chance, and his faith that a free democracy can act to remedy disparities of power and opportunity.”

The 2026 RFK Book Award winner is Marie Gottschalk, author of "Crime and No Punishment: Wealth, Power, and Violence in America."

Our heartfelt congratulations to Marie and Princeton University Press. To learn more about this year’s winners, please visit: rekhrc.org/bja2026

05/25/2026

Lily Rantanen and Tai Caputo are the 2026 RFK Book & Journalism Awards High School Journalism Award winners for their work for the Iowa City High School - The Little Hawk, "Targeted: New Evaluation System Drops All ICCSD High Schools’ Ratings."

Through interviews with school principals, a school board member, a parent, and the Iowa Department of Education, Lily and Tai found that the new Iowa Performance Profiles system disproportionately penalized large, diverse schools like City High by holding them accountable to more subgroup metrics (ELL, Special Education, race, etc.) than smaller, less diverse schools like nearby Solon High, which earned "High-Performing."

Their article, published in The Little Hawk's February 2025 magazine, gained significant readership and is credited with raising community awareness about the profiles — contributing to City High's ranking improvement the following year, prompting the district superintendent to communicate Performance Profile results to the community for the first time, and earning several journalism awards including Third Place for News Story of the Year from the NSPA.

Our heartfelt congratulations to Lily and Tai. To learn more about this year’s winners, please visit: rekhrc.org/bja2026

05/25/2026

“The important thing is that as a government and as a people we fight and strive to make progress - to maintain freedom and to uphold at all times the dignity and independence of the individual.” - Senator Robert F. Kennedy.

Thank you to all the brave service men and women who gave their lives to do just that. Happy Memorial Day.

05/25/2026

This , as we reflect on the continent’s collective resilience, progress, and resistance in the face of adversity, we’re also looking forward with hope. The Africa of tomorrow holds promise, but only if every African has a stake in their democracy and collective future.

Alongside our partners, we’re proud to have advanced the electoral integrity, transparency, and participation needed for democracy in Africa to thrive. Through membership in grassroots civil society coalitions like the Arusha Initiative and landmark victories in anti-repression cases like KHRC & IHRDA v. Ethiopia, Kennedy Human Rights is working to protect the civic space essential to Africa’s future.

But the fight is far from over. Amid growing concerns ahead of Ethiopia’s election on June 1, the continued effort to protect freedom of expression, assembly, and association remains urgent to maintain democratic governance across Africa.

🔗 Learn more about the Arusha Initiative: https://rekhrc.org/42SHD65
🔗 Learn more about KHRC & IHRDA v. Ethiopia: https://rekhrc.org/4f38EuN

Established in 2023, the Arusha Initiative results from a concerted civil society effort to enhance the efficiency of the African human rights mechanisms and respond to the attempts to weaken their mandate and independence. The initiative aims to establish modalities for robust rights holders’ and...