Jan.22, 2019

Embracing Human Rights Management at KAIST

Dearest members of the KAIST community:

I would like to take this opportunity to declare the university administration upholding human rights at KAIST. We will strive to ensure that every step in the administration of university policies and practices is compliant with the rights and dignity of all members of the KAIST community.

Universities should ensure human rights, inalienable rights that everyone is born with. I advocated the C³ leadership as the prime values that we should pursue when I took office in 2017. C³ leadership involves the willingness to pursue Change, Communication among our members, and Caring for each other by listening to each and every voice. This C³ leadership is closely connected with human rights management.

During my inaugural address in 2017, I stressed the importance of vision making for the future, saying “Our present is what shapes our future.” In 2018, I launched Vision 2031, a long-term strategic development plan, and emphasized the importance of C³ leadership as the essential component to drive innovation and achieve its vision.

Implementing human rights management has become a new institutional responsibility. It is no longer an option but an imperative, especially for ensuring institutional competitiveness in the ever-changing global environment. We will continue to strengthen our institutional infrastructure for the implementation.

The National Human Rights Commission urged more than 1,000 public institutions nationwide to establish a system for human rights management through a decision titled “Adoption of a Human Rights Management Manual at Public Institutions” in 2018. In September 2018, the Ministry of Science and ICT surveyed its affiliated institutions on how they are implementing the manual.

KAIST has always been at the forefront of upholding human rights for the sake of all stakeholders across our campuses. In May 2012, KAIST established the Graduate Student Human Rights Center, the first student-led human rights organization in Korea. The Bill of Rights for graduate students was declared on October 6, 2014, and Guidelines on Support for Pregnancy, Childbirth, and the Childcare of Graduate Students was enacted on September 7, 2015.

The National Human Rights Commission recognized the KAIST human rights policies as one of the most exemplary cases and cited us in a decision titled “Recommendations of Policies to Protect and Improve Human Rights for Graduate Students.”

KAIST spares no efforts to embrace inclusion and diversity for ensuring mutual respect among the members of the KAIST community. We were the first university in Korea to implement an ombudsperson system in September 2013. Ombudspersons are responsible for supervising any violations against research ethics and unjust or unreasonable practices and policies taking place on the campus. The Center for Ethics and Human Rights opened in September 2014. The Student & Minority Human Rights Committee for the Undergraduate Council was formed in March 2017, followed by establishment the KAIST Social Inclusion Committee under the Provost and Executive Vice President in September 2017. A consultative body called the Human Rights Belt was established to help facilitate inter-cooperation among the groups.

As such, various supporting networks made through lateral solidarity have raised awareness of human rights on the campus and we have established a solid foundation for furthering human rights management. The various groups have opened up new channels of communication between members and the administration. They help to address a variety of issues concerning human rights, relieving any possible human rights abuses and violations. I feel fortunate that such efforts have helped us develop a C³ campus that upholds human rights.

Pursuant to the recommendation of the National Human Rights Commission, KAIST continued to beef up the institutional preparations for facilitating the human rights management system last year. Previously, the Dean of Student Life assumed the position of the Director of the Center for Ethics and Human Rights. On March 1, I named a professor to serve as the director, without holding other administrative positions. On May 1, I hired a human rights attorney at the Center, which led to the establishment of rules and regulations on human rights management. The rules and regulations on human rights management will guide us going forward. It is the lawful basis for the prohibition of any discriminatory acts, protecting students, faculty, and staff members’ human rights, and assuring remedies against human rights violations.

The Human Rights Committee, led by the provost and the executive vice president, will instrumentally improve the human rights of all stakeholders in the KAIST community and will deliberate human rights management policies. KAIST has faithfully completed phase one for human rights management according to the manual of the National Human Rights Commission.

This year, KAIST will establish a human rights management implementation system and perform an impact evaluation to assess the effectiveness of related undertakings. All processes of human rights management, including the impact evaluation, will be disclosed transparently. The results of the impact evaluation will serve as indicators of the human rights management status at KAIST.

I would like to reaffirm that we will drive innovation through implementing human rights management and, in doing so, will deliver new hopes and dreams to Korea and beyond. (END)