Dr. Robert Cottrol speaking to law students at the University of Montevideo. | |
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Dr. Robert J. Cottrol, law professor
of George Washington University, visited Uruguay on May 30-31
to hold several presentations on the legal efforts to end
racial discrimination in the United States. He spoke before
an audience at the Uruguayan Ministry of Education and Culture
in an event co-sponsored by Mundo Afro, the largest
Afro Uruguayan organization in the country. He also had a
private meeting with the undersecretary of Education and Culture,
Felipe Michelini.
Professor Cottrol addressed law students
at the University of Montevideo, which has the only course
in Anglo American law in Latin America, as well as a group
of combined classes from the law school faculty of Universidad
de la Republica.
The historically marginalized Afro
Uruguayan community is struggling to gain recognition, and
is currently debating such measures as modifying the school
curriculum to include sections on the history and culture
of this group, as well as obtaining greater access to education
and employment. As Uruguay has its own anti discrimination
laws, the audiences were anxious to know what mechanisms
are in place to enforce the anti bias legislation in the
United States. Dr. Cottrol articulated the U.S. experience
with affirmative action. One of most interesting questions
posed was how the movements toward globalization and expanded
trade could be used to benefit Afro descendants in the region
by including non-discrimination in workforce clauses as
part of trade agreements. A lively discussion ensued as
to whether this could the effect of expanding protections
to workers countries where these protections either do not
exist or are not enforced.
Professor Cottrol joined the Law School
faculty of George Washington University in 1995 as a visiting
professor of law and legal history. Previously, he taught
at Rutgers University and Boston College, and had visited
at the University of Virginia. A specialist in the area
of American legal history, Professor Cottrol has taught
that subject as well as torts and criminal law. His writings
on law and history have appeared in the Yale Law Journal,
Georgetown Law Journal, American Journal of Legal History,
Law and Society Review, Slavery and Abolition: A Journal
of Slave and Post-Slave Studies and American Quarterly,
among others.
He is currently doing research contrasting
the role of law in the development of systems of slavery
and racial hierarchy in the United States and Latin America.
He has lectured on American law at the Federal Universities
of Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil and the
University of Buenos Aires and La Universidad del Museo
Social in Argentina.
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