RFI opened the International Religious Freedom (IRF) Summit for the fourth consecutive year with our University Partnership Program (UPP) on the afternoon of February 1st. The IRF Summit is the largest civil society gathering of religious freedom leaders and advocates in the world, and the UPP is a fitting way to kick it off, educating the next generation of religious freedom defenders. During this unique educational experience, a cadre of college students, graduate students, and young professionals gained a deeper understanding of religious freedom and learned about an array of collaborative efforts between public officials and civil society groups to advance this fundamental right amid enormous global challenges. This year’s UPP was held at Washington National Cathedral, followed by an evening reception at the Embassy of Hungary. 

RFI President David Trimble and Jim Bennett, Director of RFI’s National Center for Religious Freedom Education, launched the program by outlining a framework for applying the first principles of religious freedom in a variety of policy settings.

Students then heard presentations from an extraordinary group of religious freedom scholars, advocates, and public officials, including the co-chairs of the IRF Summit, Ambassador Sam Brownback and Katrina Lantos Swett, former Chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom; Piero Tozzi, Deputy Staff Director, Congressional-Executive Commission on China; Sarah Makin, former Senior Director for International Religious Freedom, U.S. National Security Council; Professor Bill Saunders, Director of the Program in Human Rights at The Catholic University of America; Ambassador Robert Řehák, Special Envoy for Holocaust, Interfaith Dialogue and Freedom of Religion, Czech career diplomat, and Chair of the Article 18 Alliance; and staff from the Programs on Religion and the Holocaust at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

We enrolled 40 students and young professionals from 12 different institutions in this year’s program.