The University of Chicago Human Rights Program

close

Remarks by Rashid Khalidi at the memorial service for Dr. Kirschner
Sept. 18, 2002, K.A.M. Isaiah Israel, Chicago, Illinois

I never knew anyone like Bob Kirschner. I have known many people who had a vast knowledge of their field. I have known some compassionate people. I have known a couple of really modest people. And I have known a very few people with a true passion for justice. But I have never known anyone who combined these things in the extraordinary way that Bob did, or with the spectacular results he obtained.

Bob was always completely dedicated to the pursuit of what was right. He was always completely dedicated to bringing out the truth. And he combined these driving passions, perhaps the most noble that can animate a human being, with a profound desire that these values be passed on. It was not enough for him that he exert himself to his utmost to see to it that the perpetrators of unspeakable evil be brought to justice. He not only felt it was essential that these evils be understood by others; beyond this, he committed himself to the training and education of people who could carry on this work. This was the root of his involvement with the Human Rights Program at the University of Chicago.

Bob was more than just one of the founders of this program, central through his role was in every aspect of the program’s activities. He was more than just the most experienced practitioner among us. Beyond this, he was both the patron saint and a father figure for our students, and especially for our human rights interns, whom we sent out to the four corners of the earth to work with human rights organizations investigating the kinds of abuses that Bob has become famous for uncovering.

To our students, Bob was a guide to what could and could not be done safely, an expert on how to approach both theoretical and practical problems in human rights, and a touchstone of common sense about the logistics of doing human rights work abroad, or doing researching here in the United States. He was the person to whom they looked the most frequently when they needed expert advice.

Because he was always approachable, low-key, friendly and full of humor, students found it easy to ask him for this advice, to draw on his vast reservoir of experience, and to obtain feedback on their ideas and projects. Bob’s presence, his expertise, and his enthusiasm were central to what we did with students in this program, and these idealistic, bright students were why he considered the program so important and gave it so much of his time and energy, even after illness began to limit both. In spite of illness, his determination and drive never flagged, however, and he continued to make the unique contributions to the program and to our students that he had always made.

As you all know, Bob was a forensic pathologist, a man with scientific training, someone with investigative abilities and capacities of analysis that astonished even the most accomplished lawyers – I was speaking to a veteran lawyer just last week, and mentioned that I knew Bob, and she immediately started telling me with wonder in her voice about a case many years ago when Bob had helped her prove the innocence of an accused man via the most extraordinary employment of his many skills, including his experience as patholgist to the Lincoln Park Zoo. Yet this brilliant scientist, this trained doctor, also understood politics better than so many supposed experts. He could see right through the veil of cant, hypocrisy, and lies that obscure so much of what modern states do, because he had looked at their concrete actions, via autopsies and other investigations that revealed the true face of these governments.

There can be no replacing a man like Bob Kirschner, neither in the field where he made his name, nor in the training and education of students in human rights. What he has seen and done were unique, and we who learned from him are all fortunate that we were able to partake in a small way in absorbing some of the lessons of his illustrious career. Many people associated with the University of Chicago have rightly won renown. But I doubt that many can point to achievements like Bob’s in seeing to it that justice and truth prevail. We cannot replace him, but we can try to emulate him, and to try to further the values he spent his entire life pursuing. I hope that we will come away from this sad gathering in his memory with a redoubled determination to do both of these things.

close

Robert H. Kirschner, M.D., Memorial Human Rights Lecture Series

Robert H. Kirschner, M.D., 1940-2002

Justice Albie Sachs at the U of C Winter 2010