Living Out a Dream — Abroad
Law professor Catherine Powell takes interest in human rights to Israel
By Kendra Hamilton
The faint of heart might think Catherine Powell, professor of law at New York’s Fordham University and former executive director of Columbia University’s Human Rights Institute, has chosen an odd location to bear her first child: Jerusalem.
But Powell’s work as a human rights warrior — suing, along with her students, the United States and China for human rights violations; winning clemency for Kemba Smith, the Hampton University student sentenced to 25 years in prison for a minor role in her boyfriend’s drug trafficking ring — reveal her to be anything but faint of heart, and she maintains an upbeat attitude about life in the Middle East.
“It’s not as bad as it seems on CNN,” she says, adding, “There’s a sense of calm here” that Americans would find quite surprising.
