Background

• Halperin received his Ph.D. from Auburn University, his M.A. from Southern Methodist University and his B.A. from George Washington University.

• He is frequently interviewed on television and radio as well as by print media, and he speaks nationally and internationally on a wide range of human rights issues, focusing on genocide and the death penalty.
• In 1998, he was eyewitness to a lethal injection execution in the death chamber in Huntsville, Texas. Halperin also participated in a U.N. Human Rights delegation and inspected prison conditions in Dublin, Ireland, and Belfast, Northern Ireland for a report by the Irish Prison Commission, and he participated in a human rights monitoring delegation in El Salvador in 1987.

• In addition to his work against the death penalty, Halperin is also active in other areas of human rights. He works with a variety of organizations which seek improvements in human rights on behalf of women, children, gays and lesbians, indigenous persons, survivors of torture, imprisoned political prisoners of conscience and human rights defenders, journalists, and healthcare professionals who are under non-stop assault by governments around the world.
• Halperin leads groups of interested persons, including students, faculty, and community members, on human rights educational journeys three times each year to places such as Cambodia, Rwanda, South Africa, El Salvador, Bosnia, and numerous Holocaust sites across Europe. Every December he takes a group to death camps and other Holocaust sites in Poland for two weeks. (Source: SMU)

Professional Positions

• Rick Halperin is Director of the Southern Methodist University Human Rights Education Program (http://www.smu.edu/humanrights/), and teaches courses at SMU.
• Halperin has served on the Board of Directors of Amnesty International USA from 1989-1995, and again from 2004-present. He served as Chair of the Board from 1992-1993 and again from 2005-2007.
• He is also a member of the National Death Penalty Advisory Committee, the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty and the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (serving as President from 2000-2006 and again in 2007-present).

Accomplishments

Criticism

Additional Information

Biography Links

• Amnesty International USA