UB Law dean lectures in Africa

Speaks against homophobia, promotes human rights

By Brighid Leavy
Posted: 5:05 pm Tue, February 16, 2010

Dean of the University at Buffalo Law School Makau W. Mutua is delivering public lectures on sexual orientation and human rights in Africa this week. A Kenya native, Mutua is addressing these issues due to the current political climate in Africa.

“Kenya is rewriting its constitution and there is pressure to address gay rights,” Mutua said in a statement.

“In Uganda, a bill pending in parliament proposes to impose the death penalty on gays. President Obama has called the Ugandan bill ‘odious’ and Secretary of State [Hillary] Clinton has denounced it. Passions are high on both sides of the issue in both countries.”

Some of Mutua’s lectures this week, funded by the Ford Foundation, include, “Sexual Orientation and Human Rights: Putting Homophobia on Trial,” and “Sexual Orientation and Human Rights: Interrogating Homophobia.”

“The purpose of these lectures is to raise awareness against homophobia in Africa,” said Ilene Fleischmann, vice dean for alumni, public relations and communications and executive director, UB Law Alumni Association. “Gay rights are an intrinsic component of human rights and Dean Mutua believes they must be protected.

“He’s an activist as well as a dean and scholar,” Fleischmann said. “He lectures on human rights all over the world. He’s a superstar in the field.”

Mutua is a member of the executive council and executive committee of the American Society of International Law, and is involved in several other human rights organizations, including Amnesty International.

Mutua served as director of the Africa Project at the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights and was associate director of the Human Rights Program at Harvard Law School, from which he received a doctor of juridical science degree in 1987. A prolific writer, he is the author of “Human Rights: A Political and Cultural Critique”; “Kenya’s Quest for Democracy: Taming Leviathan”; and “Human Rights NGOs in East Africa: Political and Normative Tensions.”

Mutua will return to the United States on Feb. 20.