Susan Deller Ross, Professor of Law, Director and Founder of IWHRC
B.A. Knox College; J.D. New York University

Susan Deller Ross is Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center and Director and Founder of the IWHRC.  Before joining the Georgetown law faculty in 1983, she was Special Counsel for Sex Discrimination Litigation to the U.S. Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. Previously, she was Clinical Director of the Women's Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, and an attorney with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. She has filed numerous amicus curiae briefs before the U.S. Supreme Court on women's rights issues and has testified at a number of U.S. congressional hearings concerning sex discrimination. She was one of the attorneys who represented Anita Hill in the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas congressional hearings.  In addition to founding and teaching in the International Women’s Human Rights Clinic, she has taught Domestic Relations Law and Advocacy and Employment Discrimination Law and Advocacy in Georgetown’s Clinical Programs.  She has also taught International and Comparative Law on the Women's Human Rights, Equal Employment Opportunity Law, Family Law, and Gender and the Law.

Professor Ross has published widely in the area of women's rights. Her recent books include Women’s Human Rights:  The International and Comparative Law Casebook (2008) and Sex Discrimination and the Law: History, Practice & Theory (co-authored with Barbara Allen Babcock, Ann E. Freedman, Wendy Webster Williams, Rhonda Copelon, Deborah Rhode, and Nadine Taub) (New York: Little, Brown and Company 2d ed. 1996).  Her recent articles on international women’s human rights include:

• Fact-Finding as a Lawmaking Tool for Advancing Women’s Human Rights, 7 Geo. J. Gender & L. 331 (2006) (co-authored with Tamar Ezer).
• Polygyny as a Violation of Women’s Right to Equality in Marriage: An Historical, Comparative and International Overview, 24 Delhi L. Rev. 22 (2002).

Professor Ross also speaks regularly to audiences around the world.  Her recent presentations include:

• Implementation and Enforcement of International Women’s Human Rights Treaties
  University of Tana
  Antananarivo, Madagascar
• Implementation and Enforcement of International Women’s Human Rights Treaties
  Guatemala Judicial School
• Advancing Women’s Human Rights Through Legal Change:  The Value of Gender Expertise
  Keynote address for Inaugural Program, Master's Degree in Gender, Women's Rights, and Access to Justice
  San Carlos University Law School
  Guatemala City, Guatemala
• Expert Consultation on Litigation:  Using International Human Rights Treaties to Enforce Reproductive Rights
  Center for Reproductive Rights
  New York, NY
• Advancing Women’s Human Rights Through Equal Protection and Equality Guarantees in National, Regional, and International Human Rights Instruments
  Global Alliance for Justice Education Inaugural Conference
  Kerala, India
• Legal Mechanisms to Remedy Discrimination
  Conference on Institutional Mechanisms for the Protection of Human Rights at the Lithuanian Constitutional Court
• Legal Remedies Under U.S. Law for Sexual Harassment and Domestic Violence
  Police Academy
  Vilinus, Lithuania
• Foreign and International Experience in the Protection of Women's Rights
  Keynote address to the Mongolian Women's Rights Seminar
  Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

 

Aparna Polavarapu, Supervising Attorney & Teaching Fellow
B.S., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2001; J.D., Georgetown University Law Center, 2005; M.A.L.D., The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, 2010

Aparna Polavarapu is the Teaching Fellow and Supervising Attorney for the International Women’s Human Rights Clinic. She has over 6 years of experience in international, cross-border, and domestic legal practice, as well as experience teaching courses on international law and legal writing. She has done field work in Kenya, Rwanda, and Tanzania, and has substantial other experience throughout Africa. She has worked on a number of different legal issues, but her practical and academic focus is on rule of law, gender equality, land rights, human rights, and customary/statutory law interaction. Her most recent publication, in the 14th volume of the Yale Human Rights and Development Law Journal, investigates how women can meaningfully exercise their land rights in Rwanda.

 

Esther Sollenberger, Executive Assistant
B.A. in Sociology and Anthropology, Franklin & Marshall College

Esther Sollenberger is the Executive Assistant for both the International Women’s Human Rights Clinic and the Domestic Violence Clinic, where she manages the day-to-day operations of both.  Her work for the clinics includes referral and docket monitoring for the Domestic Violence Clinic, planning the annual fact finding trips for the International Women’s Human Rights Clinic, and providing financial and administrative support for both. 

Revised January 11, 2012(LdL)