When I began my internship in my state’s Division of Human Rights, some family members scoffed upon hearing the nature of certain cases I dissected. To them, it was a malapportionment of time to heed race-based workplace discrimination when genocides were ongoing. To them, these government institutions reflected the weakness of modern western culture. Despite this deterrence, I stayed confident that preventing severe human rights violations begins with taking more minor instances seriously.
Exercising my critical thinking while putting justice into action was fulfilling regardless of a complaint’s validity — I dealt with companies firing employees upon discovering their illness diagnoses. I helped interview a woman claiming language harassment as an English speaker in a majority-Hispanic workplace. I accounted for factors such as respondents having attorneys (unlike complainants) when recommending determinations in the face of contradicting claims. I wasn’t discouraged when the same man called the office for the 10th time that day, shouting his demand that we process his case immediately.
Bureaucracy can cause waste, yet when I compare human rights protections in the Middle East and the United States, I realize that upholding ethics through the law is necessary for many sectors. The same elements that slow the processing of cases safeguard moral consistency, allowing genuine complaints to be separated from frivolous ones. When “insignificant” discrimination slips through the cracks, more severe violations ensue. At Princeton, I’d extend my work in regional human rights to a global scale, building a safer future for vulnerable populations in the Arab world.